The Toys on 365 are celebrating International Friendship this week. I started telling the dinosaurs and Neanderthal Man about having a pen pal when I was in high school. The girl I wrote to was a bit younger than I and was a cousin on my dad's side. (3rd cousin, once removed, to be exact -- I just sat down and figured that out. Note: the letter says "Dear Cathy" because that's what my family -- mom, dad, siblings, cousins etc -- call me. Full name is Mary Catherine.)
The Plesiosaurus was intrigued and was very keen to have a pen pal also. So we went up to the computer. (Everything these days is done online now -- including signing up for a "pen" pal.) We looked at various web sites and he decided on this one. He was a little disappointed that he wouldn't be getting hand-written letters like the ones I had from my cousin, Helen, but he's a dinosaur, not a Luddite, so he was willing to let that go.
There were people from all over the globe registered on that site, but he was most enthusiastic about corresponding with someone from Scotland, having read Helen's letters. I cautioned him that he might not find someone from the exact same place in Scotland (Arbroath), but there was a good chance of finding a pen pal from that general part of the UK.
I let him get started with signing up for an account and left to do a couple of things in another room. When I came back, I found him in tears. The site asks for your birth date (so others on the site can look for pen pals in their own age range). He had planned on rounding up or down to the nearest million, but the drop down box only went back to 1921.
The whole pen pal thing now is on hold while we investigate other web sites, but in the meantime, maybe
@beachcomber149 who lives in the next town over from Arbroath might know of someone who'd like to be pen pals with a very nice dinosaur in Manhattan, Kansas, USA. The Plesiosaurus would be thrilled.
(I'm also tagging this for my get pushed challenge from Debs Stott
@dibzgreasley which was to "Take a shot incorporating handwriting or printed writing to tell us something about a subject of your choice." )
It was a real blast from the past to find those letters from Helen Findlay from all those years ago -- got me feeling all nostalgic. I have an email address for her sister Barbara who still lives in the area (Forfar). I should ask her how to contact Helen. Thanks for leaving the comments. Made my day.