I have written on this topic before but, today I was listening to a phone in radio show and the topic was friendly letters. It got me thinking about friendly letters again.
Now I'm old enough to know what a friendly letter is. I'm also old enough to have written many friendly letters. I grew up during the 40's and 50's. I had excellent mentors as far as friendly letter writing was concerned. My mother and Grandmother corresponded weekly. As little kids we would gather around Mom to hear Grandma's letter.
So when I left home I tried to write my mother a weekly letter. I kept it up for about 5 years and then it gradually dwindled to nothing.
Up until my mother-in-law's death we got friendly letters. Now about once every two or three years I get a friendly letter from a sister-in-law. It is an excellent letter and I like to see it come.
So that covers that. Friendly letter writing has dwindled to nothing.
Back to the phone in show. There are people who still write friendly letters but it seems that they are special projects. For example, one husband went through his wife's address book and asked people to write his wife a friendly letter for her birthday. She got fifty letters and is still excited today. The conclusion on the show was that friendly letter writing is dead.
The Internet became part of the topic...emails, face book , twitter. The feeling was that these devices were part of the problem for killing the friendly letter. However, writing in these formats did not give a good letter. Another enemy of friendly letters is the phone. There are very economical long distance rates compared to 50 or 60 years ago. It is literally cheaper to phone than write.
Now with blogging there is more room for detailed information. The goal of some blogs is to keep friends and family informed. Some blogs consist of posts that describe daily life. They tell the story well enough to make it interesting enough to read.
So are you involved in any way with friendly letter writing? Has blogging taken over friendly letter writing to some extent?
A stamp dealer was telling me that stamp collecting has almost disappeared. Young people are not interested in it. They don't write and have little to do with stamps.
