FOR THE LOVE OF LETTERS

 

I’ll admit I was an oddball as a kid. (In fact, I still am!) I loved writing letters. Writing one was just as much fun as receiving one. Plus, I always chose pretty stationery & stickers.

I was a prolific letter writer right up until the end of the double zero decade. By then most of my pen pals were either dead or lost to time and distance having grown in different directions.

Nowadays we have email & Facebook messenger which are faster, more impersonal, and subject to hacking. I miss those letters in the mail.

I’ll admit some of my pen pals were not as prompt in answering as was I, but most were. Some like my friend Margaret were on and off. But I loved those funny cards she sent filled with long letters and interesting articles or cartoons.

This is how I stayed in touch with my school friends during summer vacation. Back then, cellphones were in the realm of science fiction. And our regular phones had party lines where total strangers could listen in, comment, or order us off.

Here in Florida, during the 1960’s, school let out for summer on the last week of May and resumed the last week of August.

I recall one girl in junior high, an acquaintance with whom I shared a table in art class handed me her address on the last day and said, “Let’s write!”

Surprised, I was thrilled to have another pen pal! Just days after vacation began, I wrote her a 3 page letter. Then I waited, and waited, and I waited.

Finally, in July she answered. Her single page letter contained only a brief few paragraphs I will never forget the first line “I guess I’ll write to you.” -- What??? She was the one who shoved her address in my hand!!!

In this brief letter she asked if I was in contact with another girl named Julie and wanted HER address. None of us were what is referred to as popular girls. Julie and I were also summer pen pals. We had been for several years.

I felt hurt and was insulted! I never replied to this letter. In fact, I tore it up! And I kept a cool distance from this person when school resumed.

I also corresponded with cousins up north along with an aunt. One cousin was always prompt in answering. The others I eventually gave up on expecting any notion of a reply.

My aunt (my mother’s youngest sister) was a colorful, audacious character with quite a history. I always enjoyed her letters when she finally got around to it.

I never knew what I was about to discover in one, what juicy family secrets she was going to reveal that would horrify my parents. And a couple times she even sent me pornography! – And no, she wasn’t senile! Receiving a letter from her was always an adventure. I miss them to this day!