Yesterday, I got a postcard from Iceland. There's a story behind it, which I plan to tell next week.
The person who sent it to me wrote a short message on the card. It didn't strike me at first, but I realized that it was printed.
It's also the first time I've received a non business letter (handwritten) or a postcard in forever.
Does anyone write in cursive anymore? For that matter, does anyone reading this blog post have a pen pal?
With cursive writing, my son (who is 30-something) never learned how, and I wonder if my postcard writer is in his age group. This postcard project (more on that next week) wasn't to start pen pal relationships, but it made me think about pen pals.
Pen pals were so popular "way back when". I know the practice has gotten a bit of a resurgence during the pandemic. I suspect a lot of these are young people writing to nursing home residents, or something similar. But it was different "back then".
I remember my pen pal; in fact, I woke up about 5am today thinking of her. I am a bit superstitious about when I wake up thinking of someone I haven't thought of in many years. In more than one case, I look online for an obituary and I find it. But I digress.
Years ago, when I (born and raised in New York City) got the urge to "go back to the land", spouse and I bought about 34 acres of land in Arkansas. We lasted only a few years, but during that time, I subscribed to a magazine for like minded people. They had a section for finding a pen pal.
I wrote to three or four people, and got back a couple of answers. With one, a woman living in the Midwest, I started up a pen pal relationship that lasted perhaps three years. Yes, actual letters (this was the early 1980's, prior to the Internet), handwritten, snail mailed back and forth to each other.
She was planning to move to Arkansas and was interested in finding out more about it. Whatever she found out, she and her family (she, husband, three teens) ended up moving to another part of Arkansas.
We never met. We never really tried to. Writing was fine, and she had a busy life, given the three teens.
Eventually, we moved from Arkansas back to New York State, and the letters petered out.
I don't think I've written a non business letter in years. The last person I regularly wrote letters to was an aunt who passed away in 2003.
I never thought about becoming a pen pal again during lockdown, but if you do an Internet search you will find a lot of stories about unlikely pen pals.
I hope my pen pal is OK.
Did you ever have a pen pal?
...I never learned cursive either and I'm about 2 1/2 time your son's age.
ReplyDeleteI did have a pen pal! What a fun memory that is.
ReplyDeleteCarol C
I never had a pen pal, as in a exchanging letters with someone you didn't originally know. My two youngest did. When they were in home school they connected with other kids their age through an educational program (I guess to encourage language arts skills and geography). My son's was in Australia, my daughter's in Pennsylvania. They went on for some time, my daughter's for years. They had nothing in common by high school. Cursive? I do, sort of. Half cursive, half printing I guess, when I write make lists of take notes for myself. It's messy.
ReplyDeleteI remember having a pen pal when I was young. We met through a school program and she lived in Sweden. I am sad that i lost touch over the years because I would have loved to finally meet her when I got older.
ReplyDeleteThanks for stopping by our blog. I had quite a few pen pals, but never as an adult. I have been working with computers since the 70's and I still write cursive. I even taught my kids how! But I much prefer keyboards (I'm a terrible speller). Have a marvellously happy day!
ReplyDeleteI used to have several pen pals. Now social media serves that function, I speak with many people I have never met....
ReplyDeleteI've had pen pals and I still make it a point to write letters from time to time. A small note card or post card has becoming an amazing gift these days. I've been told as much. On a mission to send out about 200 cards this year. <3
ReplyDeleteAs a teenager and even into my early twenties I had pen pals from right around the world. I belonged to a group - the name of which I can't recall just now but it was based in New York - that introduced people from all over the world. The idea was to increase understanding and broaden one's horizons. As an only child living on a isolated farm with my parents, that was something that I needed and it was good for me I think.
ReplyDeleteI had really bad handwriting back in the days when I could actually write with a pen. The Jesuits at St. Ignatius made everyone learn how to type in freshman year, then required all papers be typewritten from then on. Which, when you think about it, made sense.
ReplyDeleteOf course, there aren't many reasons to break out the old Palmer Method anymore...
I tried the pen pal thing, but it never took. The most letters I exchanged were with my grandmother in the '80s. She lived a couple hours away, so I only saw her on special occasions.
ReplyDeleteI did learn cursive, but I stopped using it in high school (in the '80s). I found that I wrote quicker if I printed, so keeping up with notes meant I printed them, and I slowly stopped using cursive. I'd do cursive in English class but print in math. And then finally the holdout classes I started printing. By college, I stopped using cursive entirely.
Wow. I had a pen pal in Elementary School but she was in Japan. I still write in cursive in my daily journal, but our sons never learned how to write it nor can they read cursive. However, I taught them how to sign their name in cursive and they so so regularly.
ReplyDelete