When I lived in New Jersey as a little kid, my dad would send photos and write ups about what my sister and I were doing to my local newspaper, the Manchester Evening News. We loved when a relative would send clippings to us. It was our only way of keeping in contact. Yes…we could call, but phone calls were expensive. Plus there was the time difference of 5 hours. We were awake when they were asleep.
We moved back to Manchester when I was in 6th grade. I spent my middle and high school years in England, before moving back to the U.S. when I was in college. My mother even sent my wedding announcement to a local magazine in Cheshire and they printed it. I’ll admit it was fun seeing my name in print.
What we wouldn’t have given for a better and less expensive way to keep in contact! No email or texts or internet or computers. Nothing. The best we had was cassette tapes. We as a family recorded a message to family using a microphone attached to a cassette player. Our family would listen to the message and send a recorded message back. The whole communication cycle could take months.
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