Please Mister Postman, Look and See, Is There a Letter...A Letter for Me?

We have one of those typical 1960s mailboxes...you know...the slot in the side of the house.  Ours dumps into our front hall closet.  The mail man delivers to our house somewhere between noon and 1pm.  Usually we are in the kitchen fixing lunch.  My children hear the clatter of the flap on the mailbox and race to be the one to grab all of the treasure...I mean trash.  Credit card applications, Loan consolidation applications, bills, catalogs, etc.  Most of it is worthless.

I am told, that years ago, people used to send personal letters to one another in the mail.  They would put pen to paper, write a missive, place a stamp on it, and send it via the U.S. postal service to a recipient. It might take days to get there.  Some people still do this.

I know a guy who is stationed overseas in the military.  He sends his wife and/or his children a letter...via "snail mail" EVERY DAY.  I have to tell you...I find that amazing...and refreshing.  In a world of email, Facebook, blogs, instant message, webcams, cell phones, Skype, and free long distance plans, he takes the time to put pen to paper and send actual letters home.

Letters, diaries, and the like have been a huge part of our history.  They are a tangible "hard copy" of the years when our grandfathers were stationed in Europe and our grandmothers were working and rationing supplies on the home front.  They tell of the courtship between our parents while they were in college, or while Dad was in Vietnam and Mom was waiting for him to come home.  Maybe it's just a stack of Hallmark cards, tied with a ribbon up in someone's closet, commemorating anniversaries, birthdays, Christmases, or expressing sympathy at the loss of a loved one.

I remember writing letters as a kid.  Letters home from summer camp, letters to my pen pal, Becky, who lived in Muskegon, Mi.  In high school and college...before email...I would stay in touch with friends scattered about via snail mail.  I still have some of those letters.

As much as I am a 21st century girl...I love my laptop, Facebook, email, blogging, sending text messages, and Instant Messinger...I am interested in how the record of personal correspondence is going to be preserved.  Everything is stored in cyberspace...or on the hard drive of a computer that will be obsolete in two years...or on a CD or DVD that will be obsolete in less than ten.  Where will the record of our personal lives be?  In a landfill somewhere?  Will our grandchildren go through our Rubbermaid tubs someday after we are long gone and find a stack of CDs and DVDs on a spindle and ask, "What are these," and then be told that there is no way to view all of the history and pictures contained there because the technology is obsolete?

And I'll be perfectly honest:  I miss getting letters in the mail.  The kind that serve no purpose at all except to stay connected to someone who isn't as close as I would like them to be.  I think...in all my spare time...I am going to see if I can remember how to put pen to paper and do some "old-fashioned letter writing."  

So listen for the clatter of your mailbox.  Who knows?  It just may be...

Mister Postman with a letter from me.