From pony express to cell phones – tweet!

Trends come and go and, if you wait long enough, they circle back around. It’s been true for bell-bottom pants, hairstyles and wool pea coats and it’s now true for the U.S. mail!

I had to chuckle at a recent reTweet I received, highlighting “Letters in the Mail” service by The Rumpus. An introductory paragraph explains: “Almost every week you’ll receive a letter, in the mail. … Think of it as the letters you used to get from your creative friends, before this whole internet/email thing.” To clarify, one letter is written and signed and then copied and sent to all who subscribe. And, some of the letter writers will include Dave Eggers, Marc Maron, Stephen Elliott, Janet Fitch, Nick Flynn, Margaret Cho, Cheryl Strayed, Wendy MacNaughton, Emily Gould, Tao Lin, and Jonathan Ames.

I’ve always preferred receiving handwritten letters by friends and loved ones, by mail. I feel they are a necessary and important (and dwindling) part of our heritage. You can read my related post entitled “Writing our own history” for more details. I applaud The Rumpus for taking something old and making it “new” again.

When I was a child, I watched the Big Blue Marble television show, featuring different peoples and cultures from around the world. At the end of the show, the producers listed an address to respond to, if you wanted to become a pen pal with someone from another country or region of the U.S.

What a terrific experience! I became friends with a girl from Sri Lanka and we corresponded for more than two years. It was wonderful to see her handwriting in beautiful blue ink on airmail paper and see the international stamps. I held on to them and (hope I) still have them, although I haven’t seen them since our last move.

Barb and I also became pen pals. She was from the east coast and we shared our struggles at school and with boys with each other. It made my day when I would return home from school and I’d received another letter. I enjoyed asking questions in my letters and receiving the answers several weeks later (which would now seem like an eternity). We reconnected again as adults and Barb told me that my talking with her about my Christian faith encouraged her and helped her in her own spiritual journey. I met Barb, her husband and her two children at my wedding in Denver in 2000. Talk about far-reaching effects! We still exchange Christmas letters.

I’m thinking back to colonial times when folks had to depend on friends, family, merchants and Native Americans to carry messages to each other. I wonder if those people who first wrote letters experienced the same thrill of sending and receiving information, with long delays in the middle? It wasn’t until 1633 that the first official notice of a postal service appeared. The General Court of Massachusetts designated Richard Fairbanks’ tavern in Boston as the official repository of mail brought from or sent overseas. In 1775, the Continental Congress named Benjamin Franklin the first postmaster general and thus began the postal system that we have come to know and love today.

What does it say about our society when sending and receiving letters from each other is “new” again? We have more technological advances that help perpetuate constant communication, yet we sometimes seem farther away than ever. Emailing information is considered “snail mail” these days. Calling someone by phone is becoming obsolete when you can text and IM the person and get a response in seconds. I was a recent caller at a phonathon and we discovered that more people are disconnecting their landline phones because they have wireless phones.

In the comments submitted to The Rumpus about Letters in the Mail, some people offered to write individual letters to others in the group. Some offered to include collectibles stamps. Many mentioned that they wanted to support the United States Postal Service and the art of sending things by mail. My dad, who was a mail carrier for over 30 years, would have loved hearing that! He got to know the people on his route on a personal basis and it wasn’t unusual for him to get baked goods or monetary gifts at Christmastime. The art of Letters in the Mail brought people together in a way that email and IMing can never do. And, it forged relationships between mail staff and the neighborhoods that they served.

Our challenge moving forward? How do we best utilize state-of-the-art technical communication devices and build strong, lasting relationships at the same time? Perhaps I’ll write letters and send cards through the mail and tweet or IM the person to let them know it’s on its way. If you figure it out, let me know … by mail, email, phone, tweet, text or ?