Remember old banks? Remember those stuffy banks from the good old days that acted the way banks were supposed to act and kept “bankers’ hours” and only loaned you money after you proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that you didn’t need it, but had piles of your own money at home in your feather mattress?.

I remember those old-fashioned banks also had a way of treating you like you were somebody special, even if you only had a few bucks in your little account.

Banks back then were like classic Greek temples, places of worship – all marble and polished brass and impressive. Today, those banks at the supermarket malls look just like a place to buy a lottery ticket or pay your gas bill.

In the good old days, if you were thoughtful enough to open a new account with a bank, they really made a big deal of it and often gave you a nice toaster or electric can opener or, better yet, a Ronco, in-the-shell egg scrambler just for the heck of it. Of course, even with those stuffy old banks, if you missed a mortgage or a car payment you were treated like an unwanted house guest, just like today. Some things don’t change. But, those sure were the good old days of banking.

Fortunately, mother and I have accounts at a good solid Maine bank, but for some reason we’ve kept an account at a big out-of-state bank.

I was reminded of all this the other day when I made the mistake of trying to call my new-age, impersonal, computerized, digitalized, recorded, security-camera-ed, digitally monitored for quality assurance bank.

Even though this global bank of mine still has a charming little branch here on Main Street, there was no local number in the phone book, of course, so I had to dial the toll-free number, which immediately put me in close personal touch with a computerized answering machine in Fond du Lac, Wis.

Folks who know say you haven’t banked until you’ve banked with “help” from a computerized answering machine watched over and maintained by the folks in Fond du Lac. For an hour I heard a dizzying array of recorded instructions and banking “options” and pushed all kinds of numbers on my phone pad. (“If you’re looking for something to do while we waste more of your time on this tedious call, please amuse yourself by pushing more random numbers. Who knows, you may win a lottery with those numbers someday.”)

As I sat there holding the phone to my ear with my shoulder while waiting for a live human being to come along and rescue me from the bank’s voice-mail gulag, I was also trying to read my newspaper.

What eventually caught my eye was an article about how passenger train service in Maine had once again done better than expected.

Soon I went from reminiscing about the friendly banks of the good old days to the equally affable trains of the good old days. But I resisted the temptation to call the train people.

I did finally get what I was assured was a live, breathing human, but by then I was completely lost in the good ol’ days and had no idea why I had called my bank in the first place.

The voice thanked me for my interest in banking and told me to have a nice day. I promised her that I would really try.

John McDonald is the author of five books on Maine, including “John McDonald’s Maine Trivia: A User’s Guide to Useless Information.” Contact him at mainestoryteller@yahoo.com.