Bob celebrated his birthday this past week. He, my dad and Columbus always celebrate together. So, if there are well wishes sent through the post office they always receive them before the date or more likely after. But this year there was only one card in the mailbox. And this was from some business aquaintance who was promoting their October specials.
I'd like to address the problem of letter writing, post cards and other cards sent, just because. When is the last time you received a handwritten heartfelt letter? Mine was at least four years ago. And I do not remember if I sent a reply or not.
Back to Bob's birthday...he got scads of email, ecard type aknowledgements. Does that make up for a real letter or card? I don't think so...yet I do this myself. For convenience, or timeliness? Laziness?
I used to send cards to my whole family. I had the dates written on my calendar days before so I could go out choose an appropriate message and drop it in the mailbox or go to the postal office. No longer on my things to do list. But why?
Let's face it, many of my recipients have passed on. Their children, who are my age, don't send cards. Heck, they don't even send an email. As families decline, so do things that were formerly just plain etiquette.
I always loved walking to the mailbox and receiving a letter or card. Didn't you? Gosh, someone was thinking about me while they were traveling or just sending a note that I was on their mind. It made my day.
The fact remains that an entire industry may well be going by the wayside, or has been eliminated altogether. We chose our statioinery with care, just the right weight of paper and just how to position those all important initials. Of course the paper was vanilla with perhaps a daring dark blue border. I loved going to the stationary shop and leafing through those huge three ring binder books.
Call me old fashioned or just call me old I miss this stuff. Shall we start a letter writing campaign? A post card a month? I think that this is entirely too late to dig up something from the past that by consensus has fallen by the wayside. I just may write a post card or two to myself...reminding me to do some odd job or recollecting some thought. What do you think?
Hope your week is sunny and bright. Watch out for those hunters. RD
2 comments:
Two hours ago I left a comment regarding letter writing on our friend Frani's page (sadly on another site as she is missed) about this very thing. Her post was about love letters and one of the things I said was that I still send hand written letters. It was one of those things that was instilled into me when I was a child and later at boarding school.
It's not just you - there is an impersonality when it comes to e cards, e mails and the like.
Give me a good old fashioned fountain pen any day.
Belated good birthday wishes.
I think there are still a few things which should never be covered by electronic mail - thank yous and letters of condolence. That said I must admit I no longer send Christmas cards or an annual letter updating friends. And most of my friends are on the internet or I call.
I look forward to going to my rural box to get my next Netflix DVD. And that is about it.
I loved stationery and also adored sending cards but Hallmark is horridly expensive these days and not within my budget.
Post a Comment