This afternoon was spent rummaging through my old  brown wood cedar chest which is full of family photos and old letters and it brought back memories of waiting for the postman to deliver the mail and the excitement of tearing into the letter.  It was fun reading the letters which brought memories of delight and sadness.  The nice thing is I did not find any “Dear Jane” letters which was a dread for everyone when receiving mail.  One letter was from my brother who was fighting the war in Korea, one letter was  from a dear friend relating her exciting trip to the sea-shore and that she had met this handsome young man, and special wedding invitations and thank you cards which made me reflect that I could not remember the last time I actually hand-penned a letter to anyone other than thank you notes.  I shutter in horror to think anyone would send a thank you email.    Penned letters have become a lost art; but,  the fun part was purchasing the stationary and, especially,  having your initials or first name printed on the top of the page.    And the joy of putting a scent of your perfume  or writing “sealed with a kiss”  on your letter was scandalous.  This was reserved only for special persons in your life.  The next step was to select a pen – will  it be blue or black or maybe even  gold  or colored ink.    Now the words are carefully chosen which conveys your personality – and are the words written large which expresses excitement and tiny words scream out that I have a lot to say and afraid I am going to run out of space.  After all is written, the stamp is important – do you want to be patriotic and use a flag stamp, a love stamp or just beautiful colorful flowers.

The fun part of receiving a hand-penned letter is – it was written only for you.  It is so boring receiving a word processor letter where the standard wording is the same for all and the only difference is your name at the top.  I don’t think I will be putting emails or faxes in my cedar chest and besides the ink probably would have  faded by now if it had been available.  I wonder if I sent a hand-penned letter to my friends which takes a few snail days instead of an email would they think that my computer had crashed and burned?  What do you think?  I think I will try it and just see what reaction I get!

kommonsentsjane