I have been known to write a few emails in my time but one tradition I still keep is the letter. Writing has never hindered only enhanced. What do most people say, it is not finalized until you have it written down. That is why most living beings I hear don’t leave paper trails. Personally I don’t like that because history needs to be reread. How many mistakes have been responded to with “if I had known I wouldn’t have done that.” Notice the cultures that have lived and survived the longest all were steeped in oral and written history. When Ken Burns made his first directorial debut his documentary was filled with letters. They didn’t tell just what happened but the emotional side of it too. As you were watching you felt you were living that moment with them. However when archeologists just find a shard of pottery all they can say is this must have held food. We want mysteries solved to learn from our forefathers to succeed in ways they couldn’t. We need their stories both oral and written.
My family has always been strong story tellers, every family gathering has at least a few. Like the time my sister tried to change the oil in our family Pinto and it ruined the engine or how she became the first person to make her own teriyaki sauce without a recipe. Now how do other family members get the recipe it is written down and passed down generation to generation. She could send via email of course but eventually someone prints out that recipe or rewrites in on a index card. Preservation starts with writing events down.
Preserving history is one thing though in today’s world to write a letter means a lot and to receive a letter it means the world. Most lives are enhanced by reading a letter but most often it is the signature that really brings it home. This was even made famous in the movie Say Anything directed by Cameron Crowe. It is how she signed the letter that tells you how she is really feeling. So whether you hand write your letter on fancy paper or type it on regular white paper. People look forward to that item that someone took to mail.
It breaks the monopoly of screen time but most important someone is saying you mean the world to me just as Lloyd Dobbler wrote. Our country was founded on getting messages to people without technological glitches. Through hail, sleet, rain or snow the United States mail always delivers as long as you answer those questions at the window first.
Therefore I am asking you save our postal service, save our mail for it is a federal crime to tamper with the United States Postal Service. For even my cat acts like Johnny Carson predicting what is in the envelope.
“The answer is tuna they always forget to add the tuna.”
