There was a time when the only way to send an instantaneous message across distance was the telegram. Morse code was used, and electrical wires, and the customer so respected the cost that brevity was more than wit: it was essential. Even after the telephone was installed in every household, the telegraph was sometimes the only way to connect overseas; it was a surefire system compared to long distance phoning.
When I was a kid, receiving a telegram was as exotic as a ride in a stretch limousine, a night at the opera, an airplane trip. It was a suspense-triggering plot device in movies, as absent from film now as the borrowed telephone or phone booth.
I’m not asking for telegrams to come back. I’m just taking a few moments to mention the system to the kids. If nothing else, maybe this post will explain the movie “On the Beach.”
The last telegram I received was in 1982, on the occasion of Danny’s birth. Steve and Becky sent the congratulations that way because they were living in Jakarta.
I also remember getting at least one in 1972, when Nick and I married. I think it was from a NY aunt/uncle, who sent it just because that was the type of thing that was done in the 1930s, when they wed.
But what I remember best is the first one. On January 8, 1963 my father sent me a wire to say happy birthday. It was my 13th, my entry into teenage. I have the thin buff paper and envelope and I can’t find a date on it anywhere. Looks like it was sent at “456P EST” and that’s preceded by “B LEA074 BDA PD RUMFORD ME 8,” maybe telling us it was transmitted from Rumford, Maine, on the 8th. It’s addressed to me, name misspelled, at home in Chula Vista. The message: HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY SORRY I CANNOT BE THERE TODAG SEE YOU SOON LOVE DAD.
Dad couldn’t be with me then because he was in Maine to help build the Telstar antenna. His mechanical engineering career had landed him with a firm that had nothing to do with the lenses or moving parts of the project; instead they built the shell. Dad used to bring home paper samples of the “honeycomb” system they were developing. That’s when we learned how strong you can make paper without adding to it, by folding it. Just as corrugated cardboard will support weight that would crush it unrippled, embedding a form of fanfold between layers of paper can create an astounding lightweight support.
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