All Thumbs

I watched a young woman bump into an opening door the other day. Nasty fall. She was engrossed in her cellphone, thumbs twitching frantically as she pounded out the vital message and then -  boom.  It set me to thinking about such things and it should you as well.

We are roughly 100 years removed from the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Corporation.  It was a system of international send/receive towers that transmitted in Morse Code.  There was one in Sagaponack, Long Island, actually would be visible from our beach if still standing (snowy so I can't look and don't care to freeze).

So what the woman was carrying around was just an evolution of the old wireless; a Marconi in reduction, and that is the "stumper" to me. The Marconi wireless telegraphs became RCA and voice transmission - Morse Code for the masses without having to spell. Wireless phones severed land lines so our phones became portable - you could talk anywhere.

Now our communication is back to the Wireless Telegraph with alphanumerics punching out discrete tones instead of "dot-dash" signals, but signals nonetheless. We sure have come a long way.

Watch out for the door.