waiting in transit: home town history
Posted: Jul 4, 2006 15:53 PDT

Everyone from New England appears to have left for Brazil yesterday (Monday) or before... except for Ann WA1S. She reported flying out of Manchester NH via Toronto.

I live in Charlestown Massachusetts, a part of the City of Boston. Charlestown was originally an independent city, founded before Boston proper around 1623. In June 1775, after the Battle of Bunker Hill (in the heart of Charlestown), the British armed forces burnt the town in revenge. This was one of the major events leading to the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. Today is the 230th anniversary of "Independence Day".

The Battle of Bunker Hill was of great concern to one of Charlestown's citizens: Samual F. B. Morse. Mr. Morse, the son of Charlestown's preacher at the First Church on Town Hill (next door to where I live), was studying portrait painting in London as relations between Britain and her colonies degraded into war. S. F. B. Morse eventually returned to the newly-independent United States and made a living as a pretty good artist. Some of his first ideas about electric telegraph came to mind during his voyage home to Boston, influenced in part by the French semaphore system and Wheatstone & Cooke's early railroad signalling systems. (I'm working from memory here, so hope I have these details correct.) As we all know, electric telegraphy grew to dominate Morse's life and made his fortune and reputation. My home radio station is the closest radio site to S. F. B. Morse's birthplace and to the monuments honoring the Battle of Bunker Hill. (Trivia question: What historic radio event occured in Charlestown?)

The "USS Constitution", the oldest commissioned warship in the world (built across the Charles River at a shipyard that now is the Boston Coast Guard Yard), lives in Charlestown a few minutes walk from my house... and each July 4 it sails across Boston harbor and fires a 21-gun salute with its smaller cannons (still very dramatic). My wife and her mother won the invitation lottery, and rode the USS Constitution today as guests of the US Navy. I rode a water taxi to Boston's Logan Airport, just across the harbor.

However, I am not speeding toward Brazil at the pace of a telegraph or radio signal. In hopes of scoring an exit row seat on United Airlines, I arrived at Logan 3 hours before my first flight. (And, yes, I got assigned an exit row seat with its extra legroom.) This turned out to be fortuitous, as my original 3pm flight to Washington-Dulles was indefinitely delayed. I flew stand-by on the 2pm flight and, after circling an enormous thunderstorm, landed at Dulles.

By the time I walked into United's lounge, the sky darkened and rain cascaded onto the tarmac, a thick sheet of floodwaters flowing across the airfield. The airport closed for half an hour while lightning darted around. And my 10:00pm flight to Sao Paulo is now delayed. (So I get to blog on a WiFi connection...).

The lounge bar, packed with delayed travelers, echoed with groans and shouts as we watched Italy and Germany battle in Dortmund. With a clap of thunder for a soundtrack, Italy scored twice in the 118th and 119th minute to snatch victory. United Airlines passengers seemed equally divided between the two teams, but all shared in a thrilling game. A few minutes later worried faces replaced that excitement as news came that North Korea launched at least three missiles.

And so the saga of travel in the 21st century continues -- so different from the ocean passages experienced by Morse two centuries ago. Modern impatience with weather delays of a few hours has replaced the grudging acceptance of the hazards of becalmed conditions and storms at sea. And the evolution of telegraphy has brought the world the simultaneous excitment of the World Cup games, and simultaneous concern over the behavior of governments.

The evolution of telegraphy also brings us to Brazil for the world cup of radio sport: the WRTC.

73,
-- Eric K3NA

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