May. 27, 2006 - 14:26 MDT

THAT WAS THEN

Today's Rocky Mountain News brought beloved memories to mind. In the business section of the paper was an approximate half page that showed a yellow Western Union telegram form, full yellow as the paper of the telegrams were. The article is by Jane Hoback of the Rocky Mountain News -- The article is quoted here in full:

WESTERN UNION

Telegrams STOP Memories Don't

" When 155-year-old Western Union sent its last telegram Jan. 27, the transmission was more a whimper than a bang."

"Gradually pushed aside by cheaper and more efficient telephones and e-mail, telegrams as conveyors of urgent news had long ago outlived their usefulness. but they remain timeless windows into people's lives."

"Telegrams had declined from a peak of more than 200 million in 1929 to 21,000 in 2005. Today, Western Union primarily transmits money from about 270,000 locations in more than 200 countries and territories."

"And it's a lucrative business. The Greenwood Village-based company, which is scheduled to spin off from parent First Data Corp. later this year, posted revenues of $4 billion and operating profit of $1.3 billion in 2005. Western Union contributes 40 percent of First Dats's sales, but nearly half is operating profit -- a long way from the days when telegrams charged by the word, and even punctuation."

For many people who sent and rceived telegrams to mark the events of their lives, momentous and mundane, the short jerky phrase and "STOP" (to indicate a period) can never be replaced by cyber shorthand."

"Telegrams carried announcements of births and weddings, please for money, holiday greetings and those dreaded and impossibly brief notifications, in terse, formal language -- "With deepest regret we inform you . . ." -- a soldier or sailor was killed in battle or missing in action"

"The sheets of paper, now yellowed and wrinkled, have been lovingly stored away in safe places. And many have been generously shared by readers as reminders of how important thie means of communication once was."

"A few telegrams from the stacks the Rocky Mountain News received in response to a request we made after Western Union's announcement can be found on Pages 8C and 9C"

Also, check out www.RockyMountainNews.com/business for a slide show."

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My Dad started his business life as a Western Union messenger boy, my Mom met Dad when she was working for Western Union in the Main Office and later married him.

Dad went upstairs to the General Managers Office, and when it was broken up in this town and sent elsewhere, he came downstairs to the main office.

Through the years dad rose to Cashier of the Main office and Mom became a branch office manager until her retirement.

My fascination with communications began with them when I used to listen to their talk at table in the evening. I found out strange facts, such as some of the traffic was in the form of coded wagers on horses and sports events. Dad said that the federal government was the slowest to pay their bills with Western Union.

I remember from an early age going down to the office on a Saturday with Dad and while he would be working I would be pretending to be a business man and clacking away on the typewriter there or playing with various types of paper. Just he and I there, no one coming in and out.

I often during the summer or Saturdays visited Mom at her Branch Office, she would be moved from time to time from one to another. The one I remember most had a learners Simplex machine, (a machine that was eventually supplanted by the telephone company's Teletype). The machine had a conventional keyboard but the keys printed on a paper tape that had glue on the back. The finished message would be fed through a hand held water tube that had a felt pad to moisten the glue, with teeth on the end of the mechanism to help tear off the strip. So, mom would let me play with that, eventually by myself, as she gained confidence in my actions with it. I must have glued up thousands of tapes of meaningless words onto telegram forms over time.

Dad typed by "hunt-and-peck" Mom by touch typing. I got fairly good at "hunt-and-peck" over time, but did envy Mom's rapid typing by the touch typing she did.

So when I went to Junior High School I took a typing class and conquering the oafish clumsy fingers did become a touch typist.

In those days I think it was cheaper by far to communicate by telegram than long distance telephone, once one learned how to keep their communications terse and tight.

I remember some of Mom's messenger boys and how nice they were to me. I remember the ticker tape type call boxes that would come to life when in an office near that branch someone would push a button and the tape would show where the call came from and Mom would send the Messenger out to pick up the message to be sent.

Through watching Mom do her business I learned a lot about customer relations (I don't think that term existed then), learned how to hold my tongue and try to keep civil regardless of the circumstances. I also learned from watching her to smile when encountering someone, remarkably it still works for me, seems to change the atmosphere to something pleasant. Also found that the smile had to be genuine. In accompanying her on those dreaded department store trips she would take me on when a Saturday would come I would notice many of those phony smiles that masked a clerk's real feelings.

Through Mom and Dad I also learned that a person's pay was for a job well done, on time, with a smile. That philosophy seems to have drastically changed for many people over the years, as well. That philosophy never changed with them even after they helped organize the Commercial Telegrapher's Union here in our town, and helped me understand the ethics of working a job.

I remember the clocks on the branch office walls were set by Naval Observatory time, didn't know then or now how it was done, but would see the hands move a tick now and then when adjustments were made from a remote source.

I also remember Mom and Dad going to hospital to visit one or another of her messenger boys when in the hospital, usually because they had come acropper of an automobile. Back in those days it was not illegal to exit the car from the driver's side which could and did mess many a messenger boy up drastically.

When I was a kid Western Union had a competitor in the telegraph business, Postal Telegraph. Their messengers wore blue uniforms, the Western Union boys wore olive drab. Their main office was across the street from Western Union's. Not much love between the messenger boys of each company.

Times were so very different then than now. Of course I was too, I got older and the times accelerated . . . . . Woolworth's, Kress, Neisner, stores are no longer neighbors on 16th street, all dime stores and usually all busy. Downtown was where one went to do business, whether shopping or other business, that is where one went. But, sadly, those days are only in my memory, time was and THAT WAS THEN . . . . . . . . . . .

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