Why don't we write letters anymore?

[AmateisGal]

My grandmother and I continue to write letters to each other. There's something about actually seeing her handwriting on the page that makes me feel a whole lot closer to her than seeing her words via email (she has email, too! She's quite the gal).

 

[TheDutchess]

Luckily, in my quintessentially English town, I have a little red postbox round every corner, but no one to write to or receive letters from.
I'd be your pen pal, I haven't had one for years either lol. We should set up a FL pen pal service thingy, to revive the vintage art of letter writing.

A Fedora Lounge pen pal exchange is an awesome idea!

 

[carter]

For years—decades—I’ve been sending Christmas cards with a personal handwritten greeting.
**********************************************
Me too till last year. (just never sent them, I did do some though, I was disheartened when I realized how few I did get the year before) I no kidding have every single Christmas card me and honey have ever received in our 33 years of marriage. I keep them in a big Santa bag. lol
Still debating if I will this year but will probably go ahead as it is my tradition. It is pretty odd to think though that during leaner times people still sent out cards. I guess it much more expensive cost of living wise now?
I guess sending out the cards should not be dependent on if they send you one back but it is nice to receive them. I have a special hanging thing to hang them on and it doesn't look exactly festive to put up bare. I remember years ago I had like little clotheslines I would hang them across the wall. I would have several lines going. Really cute.

Foofoogal, Since you are relocating, why not put up your Christmas card display thing this year and fill it with your favorite cards of the last 33 years? Each time you receive a new card, you can put it on the display thing and take down an old one. That way, it'll always be full and festive.

 

[Barbigirl]

~

Thank yous and love letters are what I write...

Thank yous I enjoy taking the time to let someone know my appreciation in a way they will really get how much whatever it is meant to me.

Love letters - initimate, hand on heart(warming) and beautiful keepsakes.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

I enjoy a lively and intriguing correspondence. I also have a great appreciation for nice stationary. I am very tactile and like the feel of embossed paper and the subtle grains on a paper’s surface. Also, I like the lines of handwriting; the loops and whirls; the uneven pressure of a fine fountain pen.

Most of the friends I correspond with are overseas, so there is that added mystery and allure of a note coming from a foreign place. I bring stationary with me when I travel, but I love to use the hotel’s as well, so a note is coming from a specific place and time. There is something old-world and romantic, in the traditional sense, about this.

Romantically, I always set my thoughts to paper, whether to not I can speak them or hand them to her. There is something about having your feelings self-attested to in your signature scrawl. I think it shows a heightened level of commitment; that you care enough to write it down, to have it there for reference and remembrance.

 

[Joie DeVive]

Apple Annie and Duchess, for pen pals, I think this is what you're looking for:
http://thefedoralounge.com/showthread.php?t=9632&highlight=letters

Hemingway Jones, if that prose about love letters isn't swoon-worthy, I don't know what is... :eusa_clap

 

[Starius]

A couple months ago, I got in contact with a female friend of mine whom I hadn't seen in quite a few years. We thought it would be fun to write letters to each other, as I had been nostalgic for letter writing myself.

Well.... I may have criticized her character somewhat in one of my letters, and now I think it may be a few more years before I ever hear from her again. Haha, oh well. I suppose there is a lesson in there.... be careful what you put in letters or you'll have no one to send letters to.

 

[eldonkr]

I used to write tons of letters. But now everyone I talk to on a regular basis can be gotten ahold of by phone, email, IM, or any number of social networking sites.

I used to send out letters anywhere from 5-12 pages to people.

 

[52Styleline]

Somehow I just can't believe that an email to a loved military person in Iraq carries the same impact as the month old letters we used to get whenever our ship received mail. Usually they would come in bunches and a sailor could spend a week reading and re-reading his letters.

I currently have a young woman working for me who is married to an Army officer. They text each other continuously. Probably good for them, but it is sort of sad he will never know the exquisite anticipation created by those two simple words "mail call".

Historians of the future will have scant resources to reconstruct the thoughts and feelings of the current age. Much of the pathos of Ken Burns Civil War and WWII productions came from the private letters that ordinary people wrote to each other.

 

[Kermez]

Comedian Greg Giraldo summed it up nicely:

During the Civil War, confederate soldiers wrote letters to their wives like this:
[Southern accent]

My Dearest Chalotte,
My heart aches with the pangs of our separation as I am away fighting the forces of tyranny and oppression. I recall fondly the days of our courtship, and our time together before the war. I long for the day when this horrible confilict has ended, and I can embrace you to my body again.​

[/Southern accent]

Contrast that with the typical letter from Gulf War soldiers:
[Bronx accent]

Dear Marie,
It is hot as @#^* out here! This place sucks! It's fulla friggin' towelheads and sand and cammal crap. It is real hot and sweety here in the dessert. Don't bang nobody else while I'm gone.​

[/Bronx accent]

 

[Mrs. Merl]

Somehow I just can't believe that an email to a loved military person in Iraq carries the same impact as the month old letters we used to get whenever our ship received mail. Usually they would come in bunches and a sailor could spend a week reading and re-reading his letters.

I currently have a young woman working for me who is married to an Army officer. They text each other continuously. Probably good for them, but it is sort of sad he will never know the exquisite anticipation created by those two simple words "mail call".

Historians of the future will have scant resources to reconstruct the thoughts and feelings of the current age. Much of the pathos of Ken Burns Civil War and WWII productions came from the private letters that ordinary people wrote to each other.

I couldn't agree with you more!!!

When my husband was planning on going to Antarctica for eight months (we were still courting at the time) the first thing that popped into my head was to write letters to him. I stocked up on all sorts of fun letter writing supplies! I thought that it would be so much more fun and personal to send letters to him! He didn't go as it turned out - lucky for me - because we were then married. But I still think the letters would have been fun to write and exciting to receive!

 

[Cricket]

I love writing letters. I go for a range of stuff to write about too. I have a thing for thank you cards, invitations, hope you feel betters, thinking of you ,the whole nine yards. I am just now starting to appreciate wonderful stationary.
My other thing is paying bills via mail. My husband pays for everything online. I have this fear about online paying. I know it is easier but it is not for me. I write my check, lick the envelope and press a stamp. I have a more secure feeling when I drop it off at the post office.

 

[FStephenMasek]

I was looking for letter-writing paper the other day, but everything sems to be made for use in a computer printer. I know some paces must still sell the appropriate paper. I have to really concentrate to write longhand., as I seldom do so.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

I was looking for letter-writing paper the other day, but everything sems to be made for use in a computer printer. I know some paces must still sell the appropriate paper. I have to really concentrate to write longhand., as I seldom do so.

Try Vroman's in Pasadena if you are near there ever. They have a smaller store on the other side of the threater...which is just gifts and fine stationary. They sell Cranes and a bunch of other nice brands.

 

[Fletch]

I was watching C SPAN 2's Book TV a few nights back and a book talk was coming from - Vroman's in Pasadena. The book was Millennial Makeover, which sounded damned interesting. All about our non-pen-and-paper-using younger generation and their political power to be.

 

[katiemakeup]

I do still write letters, but I reserve them for special situations and the like. I speak to people I care about on a regular basis, so I find that subject matter will be awfully mundane in ink.

My letters usually lean towards philosophy, emotions, existentialism and good old fashioned love letters.

 

[Miss Neecerie]

I was watching C SPAN 2's Book TV a few nights back and a book talk was coming from - Vroman's in Pasadena. The book was Millennial Makeover, which sounded damned interesting. All about our non-pen-and-paper-using younger generation and their political power to be.

Vroman's is one of a mere handful of independent bookstores around that is actually -just- as large as a B&N or Borders....

They have a -full- calender of events of all sorts, and a whole stationary store within a store...etc.

In short...super cool place.

 

[Miss_Bella_Hell]

The reasons letters used to be so special is that they were the only way of communicating with loved ones. The phone did a number on that. Now there's email. I can stay in touch with someone on the other side of the world with no trouble at all. What's wrong with that?

However, letters do have a nice tactile quality and a definite nostalgia to them. The last time I wrote letters out of necessity was in 6th grade when my best friend moved to Luxembourg. It was very fun. But guess what -- email would have helped us stay in touch much more effectively. Her move basically ended our friendship because we had a hard time staying in touch, and when she moved back several years later, I had a whole new group of friends.

 

[thebadmamajama]

I've always been enamoured with letters and cannot help but force them as a staple in my life. I have certain friends (with leanings like us) with whom I exchange letters--long ones--as our (mostly) sole form of communication. I see one of my friends about once a year, if that, but we keep in contact with each other's souls regularly through handwritten letters. I'm fairly young, but I've convinced about 8-10 of my friends to give up the email and the phone and to write to me, and I think it's added something very special and very significant to our lives. For example, one friend has her entire love story--from day one of meeting mr. right to her wedding, written up to me in letters. I now have an incredible record of her life and she of mine--it's such a beautiful thing and so unusual nowadays! I've lived abroad and have been in a distance relationship and we've been writing letters for 3 years now--I have a box stuffed with love letters and ridiculous notes that smell like him and I can file through the past 3 years while connecting with him every time I open it. Pretty uncanny.

Try investing in some luscious, gorgeous paper, a wax seal, some great pen and ink, and see if you can resist.

I've even extended my letter-love (okay, okay, freakish obsession ) to my career and graduate study--I work on handwritten letters in French from centuries past that reveal so much about who we are...think of it 200 years from now...these artifacts that have existed for centuries will not exist from our modern times... and where will the archival traces of our humanity be, a printout of an email? (soapbox, sorry)

 

[Lillemor]

Because of the short and inconvenient opening hours at post "offices" located inside supermarkets and they don't even have the same opening hours as the supermarkets and you have to wait for one of the cashiers to have time to man the post "office". :rage: !