I'M GONNA SIT RIGHT DOWN AND WRITE MYSELF A LETTER

How many of you folks have a special place....a trunk...a drawer...your file cabinet...where you have stored letters received in years past from loved ones or referencing special occasions?  I know I do!  There's nothing sweeter than to come across these letters on a rainy day when you you find yourself transported back in time reading the words of a loved one written in their own hand.  Sometimes this will be a deceased parent or grandparent's love letters written during a war....or letters from your now grown children while they were away at summer camp...maybe letters you yourself wrote as a child and your mother saved them in her special place.  Have you ever put that precious letter close to your nose just to see if you can get a whiff of that loved one you so miss?

Letters have almost become a lost art.  Beautiful penmanship on some...hastily scrawled words from an excited child telling you something wonderful that has just happened on some..printed letters from someone who knows their writing is not that good and they wanted to make sure you could read EVERY word on others.

A US postage stamp now costs 44 cents.  That's less than half a dollar.  I read the other day where the federal government is strongly considering doing away with USPS mail delivery, as the costs have risen tremendously, while folks are seeming to prefer an e-mail for personal notes, online billing and payments for everyday business and other virtually "free" modes of correspondence.  Here's a clip for a great commentary by Ben Stein that got me to thinking:

I have to agree with Mr. Stein....PLEASE raise my postage!  I ask teachers to PLEASE start working with the school kids to teach them the value of the written word...the WRITTEN word...not something you text on your iPhone or key in on your laptop.  Makes me wonder if either one of my children, now both grown, would even recognize my handwriting if they came across it.  I can still see my grandmother's writing in my mind...and my mother's...and my father's...and numerous friends, especially the ones I corresponded with while they were serving in the armed forces, mainly Viet Nam.  Oh how sweet the day when rushing to the post office I would find a long anticipated letter.

Speaking of long anticipated...have you ever had a penpal?  My penpal was from Belgium and we found each other through one of my daddy's "Ancient Ancient Age Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey" bottles. 

While on one of our annual family vacations to Holden Beach, NC during the week of July 4th my daddy decided to help me send a message in a bottle out into the big blue Atlantic.  I carefully wrote my note, giving my name, age and mailing address...rolled it up and stuck one of my mother's bobby pins on it to hold it closed.  Daddy was a stickler for perfection so we went to Shallotte and he got a cheap bottle of wine with a cork stopper (back then you couldn't buy alcoholic beverages on the beach).  Back at the cottage I watched in anticipation as Daddy dried out his whiskey bottle...wet the cork...stuck it in...and put the bottle with my note and cork into the oven on a very low temperature to dry the cork out and seal the bottle.  My new friend, Nolan Galloway, was working on his family's shrimp boat for the summer so I asked Nolan to please take my bottle out and throw it in the ocean for me.

Vacation ended...the school year began...and ended.  The following summer on my daily visit to the post office there was this fat letter addressed to me with lots of funny, foreign stamps on it!  When I opened it a rusty bobby pin fell out!  What in the world?  How exciting to read the handwritten letter to find out a businessman from Belgium had found it while walking his dogs on HIS beach located on the North Sea!  Alas, a long period of letters back and forth throughout my pre-teen and early teenage years where this wonderful gentleman introduced me to his country and the many exciting travels he made on his business jaunts.  He was so kind to read the juvenile notes about MY exciting school years.  After many years, the letters stopped coming.  How disappointing for me and after many attempts to find him again I still wonder if he passed away.  I would love to post the photos of our original letters...and the bobby pin...but those letters were lost to me when my mother died.  She had carefully kept all of them, along with many other family letters, in HER special keeping place. 

Now, MANY years later, I have been blessed with my own "message in a bottle" penpal!  While walking on the beach this summer, with fellow members of the North Myrtle Beach Sea Turtle Patrol, I saw a small green bottle at the edge of the surf.  Remembering my experience years before I walked over and picked it up.  This is what I found:

This was my LUCKY DAY!  Thanks to the internet I was able to search the address and carefully dried the message, enclosed it with MY handwritten letter and mailed it off, wondering if this young man would still live there and get my note.  About a week later I received a letter back and another new friendship began.  Turns out little Luke and his family were vacationing in Myrtle Beach, about 25 miles south of me, the summer before and he had thrown his bottle out in the surf before returning home from vacation.  It took a year to wind up on my beach.  Long story short, Luke and his family came to North Myrtle Beach this past summer for a nice visit and we are still in contact.  Now this wouldn't have happened without the art of the written word!

Ain't he cute?  Now I have some new friends...Luke and his wonderful family!  Another GOOD reason to keep writing those letters!  And teach your children to write letters.  And if it means stamps go up to $1.00....keep sending those handwritten letters!

Until next time...I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter!

Kristyemac

I'm tickled pink you've read my blog!  Now won't you PLEASE leave me a comment?