Dotdotdot. Dashdashdash

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.

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.