A long, long time ago before computers and email, letters were the means of communicating with friends and family. Yes, youngsters, it seems antiquated as hell, but we would sit down with a pen and paper and write letters to people. And then we would have to put those letters in envelopes and mail them. It would take days for the letters to reach their destination. The letter that you write might then prompt a response letter. That would take days to arrive. Writing and receiving letters was a slow, drawn-out process. But I loved it!
I have always loved to write. I love words and the art of combining them to make unbelievable things. For some of us, this is our truest form of communication. For some of us, expressing ourselves with words is the only way we feel like we can speak from our hearts and minds. So, when I got to the age of notes and letters, I was all too eager to participate.
Here's another fact that's going to blow your mind youngsters: way back then we didn't have cell phones either. We had these archaic things that hung from walls with buttons on them that you would have to press in certain orders to make calls. That's where the term "hang up the phone" came from. To end a call, you had to actaully hang up the part you were holding. And you had to know the number of the person you wanted to call. No scrolling through contacts. And these things that hung from our walls didn't have the ability to send texts. They couldn't even tell you who was calling you. The picture I'm trying to paint you was that there was a time before texts and that time was called notes.
When I started dating girls in middle school, I was introduced to the magical world of getting and sending notes. During class we would pretend to be listening and taking notes on what the teacher was saying while trying to secretly write a note to someone. These notes were full of romance and gossip and all the other things teenage minds could come up with. There were cool ways to fold the notes. Some had colorful pictures. And then when you were heading to your next class, you would either give the note to your boyfriend/girlfriend, or you'd give it to a friend to pass along. That's how we did things in the old days. It was a glorious time for those of us who loved to write and were good at it. And it was a shitty time for the kids that had trouble putting words together.
I've always been fascinated by handwriting and penmanship. For me, it is very intimate. I found it sexy in a way. Getting a note from a girl and seeing how she wrote was so cool. And if her handwriting was cool or sexy, she became that much more beautiful. If her handwriting was crap, though, that would always stick out in my mind. A huge, sloppy elephant in the room. Back then, seeing someone's handwriting was like seeing another part of their personality. Nowadays we hardly ever see anyone's handwriting. But the exhilaration is still there whenever I see how someone writes. I find myself admiring the handwriting of the elevator inspectors as I take my daily rides on the many elevators I use. I'll admire the way they did a certain letter. It's a lost art, but something I still love to see.
When I left Hillcrest middle school, I went to a boarding school in Alexandria, Virginia called Episcopal High School. At the time it was 151 years old and was all-male. I was there for the next three years and graduated in 1992. And my class of 1992 ended up being the last class that graduated all-male. During those three years, I wrote and received a ton of letters. I met my first true love, Alice Burruss, in the fall of my first year. She and I wrote to each other constantly. I also got letters from a lot of my other friends. My first year at EHS, I worked in the mail room during 3rd or 4th period. That was usually the time that all the mail would come in, so I had the job of putting all the mail in the student's mailboxes, which looked exactly like the PO boxes at an actual post office. And it was a good day when I was able to put a letter in my own box. The thrill and excitement of seeing your name on an envelope. And then opening it and reading it.
I've always been fascinated by handwriting and penmanship. For me, it is very intimate. I found it sexy in a way. Getting a note from a girl and seeing how she wrote was so cool. And if her handwriting was cool or sexy, she became that much more beautiful. If her handwriting was crap, though, that would always stick out in my mind. A huge, sloppy elephant in the room. Back then, seeing someone's handwriting was like seeing another part of their personality. Nowadays we hardly ever see anyone's handwriting. But the exhilaration is still there whenever I see how someone writes. I find myself admiring the handwriting of the elevator inspectors as I take my daily rides on the many elevators I use. I'll admire the way they did a certain letter. It's a lost art, but something I still love to see.
When I left Hillcrest middle school, I went to a boarding school in Alexandria, Virginia called Episcopal High School. At the time it was 151 years old and was all-male. I was there for the next three years and graduated in 1992. And my class of 1992 ended up being the last class that graduated all-male. During those three years, I wrote and received a ton of letters. I met my first true love, Alice Burruss, in the fall of my first year. She and I wrote to each other constantly. I also got letters from a lot of my other friends. My first year at EHS, I worked in the mail room during 3rd or 4th period. That was usually the time that all the mail would come in, so I had the job of putting all the mail in the student's mailboxes, which looked exactly like the PO boxes at an actual post office. And it was a good day when I was able to put a letter in my own box. The thrill and excitement of seeing your name on an envelope. And then opening it and reading it.
At some point in my adulthood, I came across a box of all the letters I'd received in my teenage years. It was such a blast to read some of them. The things we thought were important back then. The thoughts of teenagers forever captured on paper. It's hard to believe I was ever that young. I definitely don't miss those days. But I do miss writing and receiving letters. And I miss the thrill of seeing someone's handwriting for the first time. After I found the letters, I bought a bunch of three-ring binders to store the letters in. One of the few childhood things I still have and value. I guess it's proof that I was young once...
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