When I was young enough that I hadn't started school, and couldn't read, I used to envy my Mother the exciting packets of thick letters she got almost daily from the post office. I tried to write like she did, drawing line after line of connected loops and calling the filled pages my letters.
then I got a couple pen pals in grade school, and sent my name and address out to magazines like Archie's comic books and Tiger Beat, because they had bulletin board pages listing addresses and ages and interests for people who wanted pen-pals
I also wrote long letters to my great aunts and my aunts and cousins. Sometimes they wrote back and sometimes they made fun of my spelling but every envelope with my name and address in our post office box made me smile.
By the time I was married, I was getting a few letters a day and that helped me get through the long summer at the Black Hills Playhouse in Custer State Park in South Dakota, where I had to be in the ticket booth or snack bar for 18 hours a day even when there was nothing to do but wait for the phone to ring
After we moved from Wyoming to South Dakota, to Oregon, to Beijing, China, I was finding that I had a list of over 120 people I wrote to and this was in the days of writing by hand or typing on a manual typewriter with a bottle of correction fluid on hand. In China I couldn't even find a xerox machine.
So I started doing that dreaded, form letter, writing to everybody I knew with one letter and then maybe adding a personal note by hand on the back of the page.
I used to write letters constantly, but I confess, I'm better at personal emails now. I guess it's because I can type so much faster than I can write and it doesn't hurt my hands as much. Anyway, I used to get 2 to 3 letters a day at college. My friends would be so jealous! You've got a great story to go with your letters. Nice collage!
my mother used to write to me without fail every week i was at boarding school and her hand writing never fails to connect deeply with me - love the way the E has been added to your mail box :o)
Dixie, your narrative reminds me so much of "me" in my childhood years. I remember I always asked Mom at the young age of 6 if I could address all her Christmas cards and she complied with my request. I was thrilled to pieces and did it every year. Your collage holds a lot of dear memories.
December 11th, 2013
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