Some of the detritus of several lives appeared in the big clean-up down at Refuge Farm. One of the boxes that came out of the parent’s estate showed up amid the wreckage down at the Office Complex as Splash, Loma, Rocket, Mel and DeMille looked on with mild interest.
The Socotra members were amazed as well, since the only picture of Grandpa common in the family archives was a studious portrait of him much later in life. The portrait at the middle was taken while he was a student at Lehigh University, before the Spanish-American conflict. Upon graduation, he became what another certificate proclaimed as “a telephone pioneer” for what became Bell Labs as their new invention was dispersed to the world. Given the enormous effort to dig the Panama Canal, JB was dispatched to put the phone system in Panama City.
I have traveled a few times to see what was done. In the image above is the Culebra Cut, one of the biggest digs to connect the oceans. At lunch one day, JB saw General Goethals, the architect and action officer entrusted by President Roosevelt- the first one- to oversee one of human history’s biggest projects to date. Seeing the great man in public, and vulnerable, JB rose and walked over to speak to the most powerful man in that nation- an American General officer.
The family story goes that JB first complemented the General on the innovative semaphore system devised to connect the people who operated the locks with those managing the ships passing through the new canal. They were nautical flags of colorful nature. The General reportedly smiled as JB explained that the new telephone system could be used to simply have the working teams speak to one another and manage the system more efficiently than flag hoisters being yelled at from the control tower.
The General agreed. In these remarkable pictures, JB is supervising a working party to pour concrete into special protective channels to enable the phones to be connected. And for the Panama Canal to work efficiently and smoothly.
The project was a success. JB went on to install the phones in places like Rio de Janeiro and Bermuda. His returns from travel, wearing a smart solar topi hat was recorded by the family in some now ancient film. That these fragments of an adventurous life should surface from an adventure now more than a century in the past was a vivid reminder that the contents of some of those ancient boxes are worth a look, every century or so. So, for this morning, here is some history. From an old box filled with the life that was.
Copyright 2021 Vic Socotra
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