{"id":11530,"date":"2014-08-06T17:15:16","date_gmt":"2014-08-06T21:15:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/?p=11530"},"modified":"2014-08-08T10:31:37","modified_gmt":"2014-08-08T14:31:37","slug":"when-was-the-last-time-you-wrote-a-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/2014\/08\/06\/when-was-the-last-time-you-wrote-a-letter\/","title":{"rendered":"When was the last time you wrote a letter?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Letters.<\/a>

Letters. Photo: Liz West<\/a>, via Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

For Jon at our front desk, it was 3rd grade when his teacher required pen pal letter writing. For Dale and Bill on our digital team, blank stares and no memory of when that last letter might have been written. Ditto for Denise who’s on the janitorial team in our building and said she emails and texts. Period.<\/p>\n

Shelly wrote a letter last month to her young son in summer camp. Apparently the camp encouraged email messages but Shelly went the distance: she found the postal address at the camp’s website and sent off a real letter. Her son brought it back in his duffel bag when he returned home. (I guess handwritten letters are collectibles.)<\/p>\n

\"Letter<\/a>

Photo: Birmingham Museum via Creative Commons, <\/a> some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n

I’m talking about personal letters. Not business letters. Not email letters. Not condolence or happy birthday cards. Letters. David Sommerstein wrote a letter a couple of months ago in reply to a letter he received from a friend in New Orleans. That’s the thing. We reply to email with email. We reply to text messages with text messages. And we may be more inclined to write a letter in reply to receiving one. It used to be we just wrote letters–with or without a prompt.<\/p>\n

There’s been chatter in recent years about the loss of personal–and cultural history–with the death of the written-on-paper letter (doesn’t matter if it’s typed or handwritten).<\/p>\n

For example, take this letter from Eileen and Shirley Hussey’s foster mother to their mother Mrs. Hussey in 1940. Here’s how the Museum describes this artifact:<\/p>\n

“Over 35,000 children were evacuated from Birmingham, England during the Second World War. Children left at short notice with few possessions, and their parents often didn\u2019t know where they were going. Some children were unwelcome, or even mistreated. Letters provided vital contact with home. Some parents either refused to send their children away or brought them home before the war ended. Many Birmingham children perished in air raids.”<\/p>\n

In my early years living on the farm–we’re talking way back in the 1970s–I used to write lengthy letters to friends and family, complete with hand-drawn illustrations of my garden, the cats and dogs by the stove, plants and trees I was learning about. Why don’t I write letters (regularly) anymore? Well, there are all those digital distractions, whether Facebook or email, texts or Netflix. In the “old days” we pulled in one or two local television channels with rabbit ears and if we didn’t like what was on, we turned it off…and often, wrote letters. All this media and digital entertainment (okay, and information) takes time.<\/p>\n

Will we really delve into digital archives the way we rummage through dusty boxes retrieved from the attic? A few years ago I came across a letter from an uncle who replied to my mother’s request for advice about her relationship with her first husband. Holy cow. Shared with my cousins. Their father had written this incredibly moving and empathetic letter. Somehow I can’t imagine my son finding something as meaningful buried in my digital files.<\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>

Magic marker and an air kiss save the day.<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Speaking of my son, he’s the reason I felt compelled to consider the issue of letter writing. He lives in NYC and is increasingly more reliable about texting, calling or emailing me on a regular basis. I might even receive a quirky birthday card in the mail. But letters? Not since he spent three years in Japan, and even then I was more likely to Skype with him than receive something on paper. (Remember the old tissue-thin blue-tinted airmail envelopes?)<\/p>\n

In any case, he’s been a bit remiss for the past few weeks. Feeling guilty, he texted this photo to me. Made me laugh.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Okay, digital communication has its up side. For sure. But isn’t it fun when you go to the mailbox and there’s something inside besides the grocery store flier and bills?<\/p>\n

And, I’ve got to tell you it is much more satisfactory to take a match to a letter from the lover who scorned you than to simply hit the “delete” key on your laptop.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Photo:<\/a>

Photo: Howard Hall<\/a>, via Creative Commons, some rights reserved<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

For Jon at our front desk, it was 3rd grade when his teacher required pen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[14962,14948,13558,13],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11530"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11530"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11530\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11592,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11530\/revisions\/11592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11530"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11530"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.northcountrypublicradio.org\/allin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11530"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}