Martin Guitars, when they decided to do a Jim Croce guitar, A.J. and I had talked to them and they said, 'You know, we want to do something really special in the guitar,' and they actually found mint dimes of the year that Jim had died – 1973 – it was one of those happenstances that occur. And in the neck of the guitar, I think it's on the third fret but I'm not quite sure, there is a minted dime that had never been circulated, in the head of 73 of the Jim Croce guitars. So this "Operator" was a really important song for a lot of people, including Martin Guitar. They wanted to really memorialize it.
Excerpt from an
interview with Ingrid Croce talking about Jim, this song, and his career.
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As for TIAB:
Jim Croce wrote this song the night that he found out his wife, Ingrid, was pregnant. The couple had been married for five years, and Ingrid found out she was pregnant when she went to a fertility specialist. She recalls a mix of terror and delight in Jim's reaction when she told him the news. The child was a boy named Adrian, who grew up to become the singer-songwriter A.J. Croce.