The Lost Art of Letter Writing

[Davey Do]

Remember that? Sending and receiving mail through the postal service? I use the term postal service because when I first heard it referred to as snail mail back in the late '90's, I found it derogatory. As if something is slow, it's no good. Out of date.

But I remember as a 7-year-old in the Summer of 1964 waiting by the mailbox for my Weekly Reader and oh what a joy to have something personally mailed to me that I could read and enjoy, and it had my name on it!

And the Summer of 1973 when I was 16 and my high school sweetie was on vacation with her family, and we would write Words of Love to one another. "Love Letters straight from your heart keep us so near while apart... I memorize every line, and I kiss the name that you sign".

Ahhhhhh! Letters!

Recently, I've been getting more into retro art- ink stamps, typewriting, etc.- posting them on the various websites I frequent. Today, I needed to communicate with the managing editor of one site and chose to do so via the postal service. What a charge! I sent him some necessary paperwork and included a comic:

 

 

I told one of my virtual online friends that I absolutely love to write. In days past, while others bitched and moaned about paperwork, I actually enjoyed it. I write and draw in my journals every day, sometimes for hours.

So I thought, "Wouldn't it be cool to exchange handwritten letters?!"

Anywho, I'm attempting to revive the Lost Art of Letter Writing.

 

 

[Davey Do]

22 hours ago, No Stars In My Eyes said:

I will BOLO (Be On the Look Out) in my mailbox.  

When you get my letters, you may recognize some images from the Lost Art of Letter Writing collage:

 

I concede to go shopping with Belinda, and on the past two outings, I've run onto a couple of blasts from the past. I'd never see anybody if I didn't go out with Belinda.

The first was my ol' buddy, Tech Johnny June from Wrongway, who I ran into at Sam's. First thing out of his mouth, "I was JUST talking about you yesterday, telling people who don't know you a Dave Story!" The second thing: "It's getting worse there".

We caught up with who's still there, who left, who got fired, who died, and so on and so forth. The good news is administration asked Johnny to be in a managerial position over the Techs, training them and whatnot. They asked him last March and Johnny's waiting for it to happen. Good luck with that, Johnny, although he is the best man for the job.

Then while with Belinda at Kohl's, I ran into a dear old friend, Janie who I first met as an LPN student in 1983 and she was a CNA. Janie also worked at Wrongway when I first started there in '03. She had gotten her RN and was over the GI lab. Maybe it was called Endo.

We played Catchup and talked about who was doing what and came to the conclusion that we're all either a mess, dying, or both.

Janie had retired a year ago and said she was going through some old stuff when she came upon some postcards that I had made and sent to her. So, I found her address which is really easy, even without a phone book, and made her one of my Lost Art of Letter Writing recipients, and posted it today.

Johnny will get his. Not from Wrongway, which he knows he will, but from me, which he doesn't know he will.

 

[No Stars In My Eyes]

That's a GREAT envelope and awesome postage stamp! ?

Once I had a friend who was a radio broadcaster, and he liked to fish. I mailed him a card and around the name and address on the envelope, I drew a little sketch of a man resembling him, standing in a body of water, in the midst of (broad) casting his fishing line, at the end of which was his name and address.

Another guy who hubby used to work w/ at the Sheriff's Dept had a handlebar mustache that he waxed out into wings (well, maybe not as large as wings, but you get the idea) and when I mailed something to him at the Sheriff's Office I made his name in the shape of his mustache! It was so cool, if I do say so myself! 

I may even have a xerox copy of both of those envelopes...if only I knew WHERE they are! But if I ever run across them, I'll make copies to send to you.

[Davey Do]

10 minutes ago, No Stars In My Eyes said:

That's a GREAT envelope and awesome postage stamp! ?

Does that mean you got my letter posted July 5th?

[No Stars In My Eyes]

No, I ain't got nuthin' yet, I was reacting to the drawing you included above. Sometimes our mail runs very late; maybe I'll get something tonight.  (I hope)

[Davey Do]

Jeezo Pete!

No wonder people don't use the US Postal Service and now I believe "Snail Mail" is a fitting phrase!

BTW: Thanks for the compliment and the Always Entertaining Stories!

[No Stars In My Eyes]

I am so full of stories that it makes some people roll their eyes out loud, because one thing reminds me of something else, and ad infinitum. Same way when someone says some word or words that are in a song, I've been known to start singing the few lines of the song. Some days, I gather, it can get to be a little much. One time someone asked me, "Are you ALWAYS like this?"  (No, but....)

I also listed in the HS yearbook that one of my nicknames was "StarsBeQuiet" (that was before I was NSIME, though, so it contained my real and actual first name).

And yet, I love the peace and quiet of solitude. I guess because I don't talk out loud to myself very often. (I do mutter sometimes.)

[Davey Do]

25 minutes ago, No Stars In My Eyes said:

I am so full of stories that it makes some people roll their eyes out loud, because one thing reminds me of something else, and ad infinitum.

That's the way artist are and I often say that Loose Association is my stock-in-trade, as it perpetuates my art.

We Right Brainers will abstractly connect one thought or idea with another, ad infinitum. You were my first choice with who to correspond because I've always been attracted to how your mind works and believe we are Cosmic Kin.

That's one reason I'm glad I reconnected with Janie- she takes an idea and runs with it. For example, part of our conversation went like this:

"My daughter was so worried because today I took my granddaughter to her first swimming lesson. I told her it would be safe because they'd be a lot of people around to watch the kids because the pool's not open yet."
 
"Do you mean, like, they sit in an empty swimming pool?"

"Yeah! They tell the little kids, 'Now pretend you're under water! Hooold your breath!'"

That may have been a Geological Joke, in that, you had to be there.

 

[Davey Do]

29 minutes ago, No Stars In My Eyes said:

And yet, I love the peace and quiet of solitude. I guess because I don't talk out loud to myself very often. (I do mutter sometimes.)

Same here. Belinda's a quiet type, also. I love that. We can be together for long periods of time in comfortable silence.

Sometimes, when we haven't said a word to each other in quite a while, I'll yell, "I heard you, dammit!"

[No Stars In My Eyes]

It's good to be able to have the ability to maintain a comfortable silence with another.

I've told this before, but when we lived in another house, and I would be standing at the sink, which faced a blank wall, and hubby and I would have been talking while I did the dishes. Then I'd be talking, and ask a question or want some kind of response, I'd turn around and hubby wouldn't even be in the room! I told him, if you're going to leave the room, tell me, so I won't be here talking to nobody. SO, he started saying, "Don't talk to me! I'm leaving the room." It eventually got cut down to "Don't talk to me!" Some folks don't quite know how to take that, but it's whatcha call "a private joke". So when there are long, long silences, one of us will say, loudly, "DON'T TALK TO ME!"

[No Stars In My Eyes]

7:40 PM, 7/15/2022: The mailman just went DOWN the road, and I am waiting for him to come back on our side.

*fingers crossed* 

[Davey Do]

I'm a little chagrined with the Postal Service. Letters put in my mailbox the day before yesterday were still in there late in the afternoon yesterday.

The romance is beginning to wane.

[Davey Do]

11 minutes ago, Davey Do said:

The romance is beginning to wane.

Okay, less than 1/4-hour later and the romance is back. My NY Pen Pal on the Open Art site got his letter and will respond by return mail.

The above collage is getting some good reviews on the Art Addicts site.

I'm back in the groove.