A Lost Art

I was talking with a friend yesterday and the subject of letter writing came up. In this electronic age letter writing has become a lost art. Not many people write letters anymore and if they do, odds are they're typed rather than hand written. Think back to when you were younger and how exciting it was to get an envelope in the mail with your name on it. You could tell from the hand writing who it was from. You coudn't wait to read what they had to say and most of all you knew they liked you because they took the time to write in the first place.

My friend and I agreed that a letter is special. You can read the letter when ever you want, you can carry it around with you, somehow having a handwritten letter makes you feel closer to the sender. It's much more personal. Of course you can telephone someone and voice your thoughts but somehow seeing the words in writing means even more to me. Women especially enjoy receiving love letters. How romantic to wake up to a letter left by your pillow from your sweetheart. I am happy with a good morning e-mail though.

I am a letter writer, well I used to be one. As a child I was in Bluebirds and Campfire Girls (sort of like Brownies and Girl Scouts) and our leader somehow got the addresses of servicemen stationed in Vietnam. We became their pen pals and called them our big brothers. I can't tell you how exciting it was to get those letters from the soldiers. To see that red and blue bordered air mail envelope was wonderful. For many years I saved those letters but somehow over the last 35 years I've missplaced them. I wish I knew what I did with them. I wrote to my grandmother and cousin that lived out of state. I had a pen pal named Claire who lived in Jamaica that I exchanged letters with for years. Another friend I only saw 2 weeks a year when our families vacationed at the same place but we wrote to each other all the time. I used to write to my parents while they're wintering in Florida but now I just call. So yes, I once was a letter writer. A good one too. I miss writing them.

So drop someone a letter sometime. They will be pleasantly surprised. I think I will write my niece, 10 and nephew, 8 each a letter even though they live about 20 minutes away. Maybe I'll even stick in 5 bucks. At their age, that's still a decent amount of money. :)