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| Image by McFortner via Flickr |
And, why did they only say it in French and English if the envelope came from North America? Did we only send mail to France? Did we buy all our envelopes in Quebec? Did we think French was the only other language spoken or that everyone else but the French would just see the little plane?
I was a language major in high school, had relatives in Europe, and spent the summer I was 14 in Spain so I had cause to make a rare call and send and receive mail to and from Europe and once in a great while even to a friend who moved to Asia to teach. A daytime call to Europe was a ridiculous expense. But we also only made long distance calls after five in the evening if it was important and after eleven for any other reason because the rates were lower.
As late as the mid 80s it was thought that video communication would never be commonplace. That the best we could hope for were something like faxed still shots.
In the early 1990s we had a great trip to Italy to meet my cousins there. I remember crying as we left because I thought of my maternal Grandfather who had emigrated to the US in the early 20th century. He had only returned to Italy once in 1968. My mother went with him. Since then my family has gone back and forth many times. If it weren't for the hassle of flying and house sitter arrangements it would be a walk in the park to go back and forth. The world has changed so much.
Lest I sound like my own grandmother, let me say that my husband is part of the technological revolution that makes this communication possible. It isn't only what I remember, it's looking back just a century or two when it took three months to cross the Continental US and information only moved as fast as a ship or a horse.
Amazing.
