Alan and I were talking about technology and thinking about what it would have been like when we were "courting" via the US and Kenya mail systems if we had been so fortunate to have e-mail and cell phones and e-mail with web cams, etc.
Did that absence from each other and that waiting for those letters make our hearts grow fonder? Might that not have happened had we been able to "see" each other every day, and even talk to each other via the Internet? I don't know.
We do remember, though at the 1964 World's Fair -- which was held in New York City -- that picture phones were an idea Ma Bell (that was before the break-up of the monopoly) proposed to the Fair goers. One would go into a room, and then a buddy would go into another room, and they would be able to see each other on a monitor and use the phone at the same time. It was nothing like holding a cell phone in front of one's face and smiling for the phone camera so that the person on the other end, should that person be fortunate enough to have a phone with the camera or receiver in the set, could see the person talking to them.
No, technology back in the 60s was nothing like it is today. I'm glad in a way that Alan and I went through the angst of waiting for those air-grams. I'm glad I had to walk to the Post Office twice a day, hoping against hope that the blue letter would be waiting for me. In actuality I was lucky if there was one letter for me from Alan once a month. He wasn't a good writer. I wrote to him almost every day, sending him two or three letters a week. Each air-gram cost 12 cents -- that was the cost for overseas air-mail.
Do they even have air mail any more? I suppose all mail is now air mail, but back in the 50s and 60s air mail was something special and you paid extra for it. If you wanted something to get to California from Philadelphia in three days or less, you paid to have it sent air mail. Today, anything mailed from Philly, arrives in California the next day and is then sorted for delivery on the second day.
Today, I can send a letter to my daughter who lives in Indiana on Wednesday and she has it on Thursday. It wasn't like that when I was growing up and becoming a young woman. Even mail to the northern part of New Jersey from South Jersey took at least two, probably three days. You always counted on an extra day, so if I sent a letter to someone in North Jersey, I expected it wouldn't be there for four days. A letter sent from Runnemede to Bellmawr (the next town up the pike) might get there the next day.
You see sorting wasn't like it is now. We didn't have zip codes until the mid-60s. I remember working for a Philadelphia law firm, and we always wanted the mail to get there a.s.a.p. That meant first class to Philadelphia, Special Delivery to towns that weren't within the air-mail limits. And Air Mail to everyone else. No faxes back then either. In fact, xerox copiers were just coming into vogue and the law firm had one, but it couldn't be used for anything except inter-office mail. Courts did NOT accept xerox copies of anything back then. Only carbon copies were accepted by the courts.
Even in the late 60s/early 70s, copiers were more readily available, but Alan still had to hand in carbon copies of his master's thesis. The committee would not accept a xerox copy. I say xerox because that was the first company to really get hold of the copying market. And you didn't say I need a copy of this or that, you said you needed a xerox of this or that.
So, I thought you might like to know about this. It isn't a five-mile walk in snow uphill to get to school story, but it is a story about what it was like before all this technology came along. Life was much, much simpler then, but somethings were made much simpler for you folks today.
Did that absence from each other and that waiting for those letters make our hearts grow fonder? Might that not have happened had we been able to "see" each other every day, and even talk to each other via the Internet? I don't know.
We do remember, though at the 1964 World's Fair -- which was held in New York City -- that picture phones were an idea Ma Bell (that was before the break-up of the monopoly) proposed to the Fair goers. One would go into a room, and then a buddy would go into another room, and they would be able to see each other on a monitor and use the phone at the same time. It was nothing like holding a cell phone in front of one's face and smiling for the phone camera so that the person on the other end, should that person be fortunate enough to have a phone with the camera or receiver in the set, could see the person talking to them.
No, technology back in the 60s was nothing like it is today. I'm glad in a way that Alan and I went through the angst of waiting for those air-grams. I'm glad I had to walk to the Post Office twice a day, hoping against hope that the blue letter would be waiting for me. In actuality I was lucky if there was one letter for me from Alan once a month. He wasn't a good writer. I wrote to him almost every day, sending him two or three letters a week. Each air-gram cost 12 cents -- that was the cost for overseas air-mail.
Do they even have air mail any more? I suppose all mail is now air mail, but back in the 50s and 60s air mail was something special and you paid extra for it. If you wanted something to get to California from Philadelphia in three days or less, you paid to have it sent air mail. Today, anything mailed from Philly, arrives in California the next day and is then sorted for delivery on the second day.
Today, I can send a letter to my daughter who lives in Indiana on Wednesday and she has it on Thursday. It wasn't like that when I was growing up and becoming a young woman. Even mail to the northern part of New Jersey from South Jersey took at least two, probably three days. You always counted on an extra day, so if I sent a letter to someone in North Jersey, I expected it wouldn't be there for four days. A letter sent from Runnemede to Bellmawr (the next town up the pike) might get there the next day.
You see sorting wasn't like it is now. We didn't have zip codes until the mid-60s. I remember working for a Philadelphia law firm, and we always wanted the mail to get there a.s.a.p. That meant first class to Philadelphia, Special Delivery to towns that weren't within the air-mail limits. And Air Mail to everyone else. No faxes back then either. In fact, xerox copiers were just coming into vogue and the law firm had one, but it couldn't be used for anything except inter-office mail. Courts did NOT accept xerox copies of anything back then. Only carbon copies were accepted by the courts.
Even in the late 60s/early 70s, copiers were more readily available, but Alan still had to hand in carbon copies of his master's thesis. The committee would not accept a xerox copy. I say xerox because that was the first company to really get hold of the copying market. And you didn't say I need a copy of this or that, you said you needed a xerox of this or that.
So, I thought you might like to know about this. It isn't a five-mile walk in snow uphill to get to school story, but it is a story about what it was like before all this technology came along. Life was much, much simpler then, but somethings were made much simpler for you folks today.
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