Carrier pigeons are a variety of the Rock Pigeon that are selectively bred for their innate homing abilities. Their innate homing ability made them very useful for carrying messages. However, because they can effectively only store one memory of their home, they can only really send messages one way: the sender of the message must have the receiver's carrier pigeon with him/her and release it when ready to deliver a message. However, it is possible to train them to fly back and forth, reliably, between two locations (home and where its food is) up to twice a day.

Cher Ami

Carrier pigeons were used fairly extensively throughout both World Wars. Of the 64 Dickin Medals given since 1943, 32 were awarded to pigeons. One particularly famous pigeon, Cher Ami, was responsible for saving the Lost Battalion of the 77th Division in the battle of the Argonne during World War I. The 77th Division were trapped in a small depression behind enemy lines without food or ammunition. They had already lost a lot of lives to the Germans and were being shot at by allies who did not know where they were. The first two birds they tried to send out were quickly shot down. Cher Ami, their last homing pigeon, was sent out with their location and a plea for help. As she first begin to take flight, Germans began to shoot her down and bullets flew all around. She was eventually shot down, but was soon able to fly again. She survived the 25 mile flight to the division headquarters despite being shot through the breast, being blinded in one eye, and having one leg held on with just tendon. The doctors worked very hard to save her life and even carved a new small wooden leg for her. She went on to receive the Croix de Guerre medal and the Oak Leaf Cluster for her service. She eventually died at Fort Monmouth, New Jersey on June 13, 1919 from her battle wounds.

Carrier pigeons have all but gone entirely out of use with the advent of telephony. Is there any room left for the carrier pigeon in a place and time where the postal service is dying a slow death? Is there any interest left in a way of communicating that doesn't rely on the immediacy we have come to expect?

At least 90% of the American population owns a cellular telephone, which means pay phones have mostly gone out of use. I can count the number of times I've used a pay phone on one hand (2, maybe 3 times) and I only used them because I had forgotten my cellular telephone or I left it somewhere. I'm sure that they go unnoticed by most passerby.

However, there's this website that serves as a digital ode to pay phones. The story about how this website came to be is pretty great, but I'll let the author, Mark Thomas, speak (as it were) for himself (the story includes anonymous piano recordings and audio voyeurism[!!!]).

Mark has archived the list of all the telephone numbers he received. Beside some of them are these great descriptions of where these public telephones are:

Inside Associated Student Body room at the Hanford High School East Campus. Many students come in here to partake of vending machine food and soda, or to get out of the rain. (209) 583-9856

This phone booth is in a big parking lot of an Exxon station in Galt, CA just So. of Sacramento along Hwy.99. (209) 745-9910 It's pretty lonely out there.

Phone located outside of a little market in the little farming community in Strathmore Ca in the Central California. The only town in California where the females outnumber the guys 5 to 1........Just ask for Greg, he's got all the connections. (209) 568-9098

by food 4 less on alamo dr. i'm always at this payfone waiting for someone to call, gimmie a call any weekday around 6 p.m., btw, my names joe (707) 448-9830  

And so on and so forth.



The pictures submitted are both quick snapshots, meant to instruct and illustrate more than anything, and more carefully framed shots, ones you just know the person took while they were walking around alone. They have this feeling that Edward Hopper was able to capture so well in the American landscape and that I find so oddly comforting to look at.



I really like this small online museum. What's great is that the website seems to have surfaced sometime in 1995 and is still being updated. Mark Thomas encourages people to send him photographs of pay phones and their respective phone numbers, though you are not able to call most of them anymore. Having websites like this, and people like this, allow you to be a little more aware of the things that are often looked over: small, but not necessarily trivial things, that can help add depth to our lives.