Subscribe to the magazine for more art, inspiring stories, fiction, humor, and features from our archives.The family of a three-year-old with cancer have said they are "forever grateful" after a letter from a complete stranger arrived despite it not having their address on it. This article is featured in the January/February 2021 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. With that in mind, I think I’ll grab my Montblanc pen, fill it up, and in my best cursive write a nice thank-you note to my editor for this assignment.Įd Dwyer’s last article for the Post was on Woodstock in the July/August 2019 issue. Perhaps if we all sent more cards and letters by mail, using a first-class Forever stamp, it would help the letter carriers keep their essential jobs. With more and more business and communications happening online, there’s less and less revenue from postage. If you’ve been reading the papers, you know it’s in a bad way for a lot of reasons, a big one being the impact of the internet. (I’ve been using ballpoints filched from my dentist’s office and Weight Watchers meetings.) And I call myself a writer.Īs it happens, 2020 marked the 50th anniversary of the USPS. I also own a classic Montblanc fountain pen that I’ve used just once in the last decade. It was a gift from a friend in England back in 2000, and even then it seemed sweetly archaic. I have some lovely embossed stationery from Smythson of Bond Street that I’ve never used. It’s not like I don’t have the letter-writing hardware. But I haven’t sat down with pen and paper in recent memory to send my best to or catch up with a friend. Yes, I religiously send Christmas and birthday cards (though, sadly, fewer every year), and lately more condolence cards than I’d prefer. Here’s where I make a confession: I haven’t been holding up my end as a correspondent. A postcard meant a friend was thinking of you and wanted you to share in their experience (“wish you were here”). You could put them on display on the refrigerator or the family bulletin board. Speaking of postcards, I haven’t received one since I don’t remember when. Some of my fondest memories are preserved in those boxes. And how do you save an email or text for posterity? In my garage, I have several shoeboxes full of letters and postcards that I received over the years from girlfriends, wives, old pals, beloved relatives, colleagues, and far-flung acquaintances. Could there be anything colder than a Dear John text? You can’t even rip it up. I ask you, where’s the passion in an emailed love letter? No matter how many emoji hearts and kisses are attached, it’s still just pixels on a screen. There’s no warmth in digital greetings, whereas a handwritten and -addressed card or letter can lift the spirits and bring a special joy. Ultimately though, emails, texts, and Facebook posts don’t cut it for me. As mediums, they’re everything we prize nowadays: fast, convenient, accessible. I send plenty of emails, I text several times a day, and I’ve been known to post photos and share memes on Facebook.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |