Communicating today is so easy. We have the internet, cell phone, two-way radio, satellites, telephones, television. . . the list goes on and on. Some people have a TV, and a telephone in every room. We have instant communications from anywhere to anywhere else. It's hard to get lost these days. People hiking in a wilderness carry cell phones and GPS equipment. Airplanes are getting bigger, if not faster, and they have radios (pl), transponders, and all kinds of navigation stuff like GPS.

But before all of this life wasn't so easy. A couple of decades back, a few people had "mobile phones." They would call the mobile operator who would make the call and patch them in. When the call was over, the mobile operator would disconnect you. Truck drivers had their CB radios that were good for a couple of miles. People at home had phones that were either wired to the wall or had a tiny radio that let them talk through a base unit from anywhere in the house or sometimes even out it the yard. Airplanes flew passengers at 600 miles per hour.

Before that, maybe 40 or 50 years ago, most homes had a telephone, a television and an AM radio. Overseas phone calls were rare, expensive and a lot of trouble. Even a call to the next county was "long distance," and expensive. You could send a telegram, usually ten words, but it had to be delivered by phone or by a boy on a bicycle. Television was black and white and you might have as many a three channels in cities. Out in the country a big ugly antenna on the roof might bring in one good channel and a fuzzy one or two. Television from across the ocean was put on film and then flown to a network across the pond. Usually, it took something like the Olympics to be worth the trouble. There were audio recorders that used a magnetized wire, but tape recorders and video tape were still in the future. Airplanes flew passengers at 300 miles per hour

Before that time, let's say in the early 40's, most people never heard of television. Most homes had a radio, and some had a telephone. Telegrams were available only to places where you could string a wire. Long distance telephone calls were difficult to understand and could take an hour or more to be connected. Police cars and pilots were beginning to use two-way radios, but they were somewhat unreliable. Ships often used dots and dashes to communicate. That was also unreliable. If something big happened on the other side of the world, it might be a long time before you heard about it. People could go to the movies and watch a newsreel. Airplanes flew passengers at 180 miles per hour.

Before that, and we are in the 1930's now, some families had a radio. Many of the radios were battery powered because not everybody had electricity. In cities, there were telephones that operated through a switchboard. News from overseas usually came by ship. It was printed in newspapers which were hauled around by truck. The teletype machine came into use and news came to some papers and radio stations by wire. Most people traveled by bus or train, because cars and airplanes were not very reliable and roads often became impassable in bad weather. Airplanes carried a few passengers at 100 miles per hour.

Before that, we had the roaring 20's. It's easy to see why they roared, because communications was by mail and letters had to be trucked to the railroad where they were carried on round about routes by train and then to another post office by truck. Once a day, a postman delivered your letters, if any, and he was walking. Few people had ever listened to a radio, and most had never been more than a few miles from where they were born. For Americans, Europe might as well have been on Mars. Cars were rich man's toys. Most people used horses for transportation. Airplanes could barely fly fast enough to stay in the air and a lot of them didn't.

And before that, back when the 19th century was becoming the 20th , there were trains, newspapers. and telegraphs, but they were not always available. People walked or rode a horse and the news mostly spread by word of mouth. Communication over long distances usually involved a ship or a man on a horse. The airplane was an infant in late 1903 and you could count the people who had flown on the fingers of one hand.

Getting lost was easy in those days.