[lit-ideas] Re: The Death of the Telegram

David Ritchie wrote:

Weather here hot, stop  Yes, Michigan fun, but fridges still proving
nuisance, stop  Details to follow, end

I miss telegrams.  Following tradition, many of my relatives sent
congratulatory telegrams when Laura and I were married.  And what happened?
Someone at the post office picked up the phone and read us the words,
entirely missing the point.  It would have been cheaper to call from the
U.K., but the relatives wanted the real thing, the teletyped string of paper
that you then were supposed to paste in the wedding album, the mysterious
language with stops.

It's still possible to send a hard copy telegram. I sent a birthday telegram to my cousin in Idaho, earlier this month, via the Western Union website. I think there's a way to specify that you want it delivered, not merely read out. The lines sent were a quotation from Owl, in the Winnie-the-Pooh books; I doubt that whoever reads telegrams over the phone in Boise, could have got them straight.

Robert Paul
hoarding postage stamps near
Reed College
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