At 8:03 a.m., December 18, 1955, a clerk in Buffalo, New York inked a stamp-pad and accepted this dictated message: "Congratulations and much happiness on your engagement to you both. Stop. Sorry I could not come love. Stop. Steve."

At 2 p.m., same day, a uniformed messenger delivered a small envelope to my house several hundred miles away, bearing in bold print the words Western Union Telegram. A window on the sealed envelope allowed view of my name and address. The back of the envelope, form 1529-OA, advertised “for keepsake remembrances telegraph your greetings,” as well as “for reservations telegraph and be sure,” and “telegraphic gift money orders perfect for all gift occasions.”

For keepsake remembrances......yes. A few that day had decorations on its paper. One envelope, flashing a bold red oval, proclaimed “A greeting,” and the inside paper was embellished with a pink orchid and congratulations script border; the message was pasted between the orchid and border. Some telegrams were called from Brooklyn and a few “keepsake remembrances” were wired from people who only lived a few streets away.

Each souvenir from my 1955 engagement is tangible proof of a persona and this event. Who, today, would press a fax between pages of a special scrapbook?

Telegrams weren't pretty with awkward strips of paper merely pasted in place by often clumsy human fingers. Delivered by more human hands that waited for a tip of coins in exchange for the envelope, different emotions were aroused before severing the seal.

World War II messages were often government revelations of an armed-service loved one's death. Have survivors nestled these grief-grams among personal documents? Are any currently in safety deposit boxes rubber-banded with V-Mail and silk-screened 1945 Christmas greeting cards from Yokahama?

What was my last wire? It was more than 30 years ago and sent to my mother who was in a San Francisco hospital after a massive heart attack that caused multiple blood clots to her lungs. I telegraphed from 3,000 miles: “Am flying out to see you. Stop. Love Lois.” Why didn't I just telephone the hospital and tell someone in ICU to verbalize the message?

Tangible. Might she run fingers over the raised strips of words and feel...feel caring...feel sharing ... feel urgency? Could she fold and clutch the crisp paper in her hand while life-sustaining fluids flowed via intravenous tubing? Would she carry it in her suitcase, as she exited, to re-read years later?

American Telephone and Telegraph Company is a giant army made famous by Allan Sherman's ditty album on LP plastic records. Let's all call out A, T and T...Western Union's been the tiny cavalry with its bugle blower emitting Morse code.

Convertibles have returned even though auto air-conditioning has allowed passengers to be climate-controlled rather than wind/sun burned. Train travel is trying to restore its position as a transportation device offering an alternative to six-abreast cramped airline coach seats. But transportation isn't printed matter and has its own mystique. My old telegrams have become historical items, and in our digital world, won’t be seen again.

Lois Greene Stone, writer and poet, has been syndicated worldwide. Poetry and personal essays have been included in hard & soft-cover book anthologies. Collections of her personal items/ photos/ memorabilia are in major museums including 12 different divisions of The Smithsonian.