By Mechele R. Dillard
We are the generation of convenience.
In our daily lives, we want what we want, and we want it now. Quicker than now. We want it before we’ve thought of it.
Convenience.
Many of life’s little indulgences have been lost in the shadow of convenience. Family suppers around the dining room table. Hot cups of coffee, brewed and enjoyed in the kitchen, welcoming a new day. Long, bubbly baths. Sitting on the porch, watching the sunset and counting our many blessings. Letter writing.
Growing up in the 70s, I had a pen pal. I “ordered” her off of the “Big Blue Marble” television show. Her name was Lisa. She was Canadian, which I found endlessly fascinating.
Getting that letter every couple of weeks—what a rush! Here, in this little white envelope, was another chapter in the saga of a mail-order friendship. Sometimes the envelope contained a picture. Sometimes there would be a cultural oddity, like a Canadian coin, placed within the folds of the contents. But, always, there was the prize: the letter.
During my college years, my friend Michael and I wrote letters almost daily. Leaving a small town in the north Georgia mountains and starting college among thousands of strangers—me at UGA, Michael at Emory—we needed the familiarity of our life-long friendship more than ever. Letters not only had the personal touch we needed, but they were cheap! You know, a book of stamps goes a lot further in gossip miles than a month’s worth of long distance minutes!
Over the course of several years, we wrote hundreds, if not thousands, of letters. To this day, that correspondence is among my greatest college memories.
Nowadays, of course, email is the king of all communications. For one low monthly payment, we can get online and zip letters off to friends, family and cyberdates. We no longer have to make the effort of putting pen to paper, licking an envelope, sticking a stamp, and driving to a mailbox to send a letter that will be outdated by the time it arrives. Oh no. We can send news—not just current, mind you, but live and ongoing—as fast as we can type. And, a person who is not “web savvy?” Well, they may as well admit to not being sure about that “telephone contraption!”
I’m as guilty as anyone with my dependence on the web. I had not sent “snail mail,” other than the kind demanding the enclosure of a check, in years, until I received a letter from Thelma.
Thelma is an interesting lady who took the time to write and let me know that she had grown up with my great-grandmother, whom I write about occasionally in my weekly column. Her first letter had been typed by her daughter, because Thelma has a hard time writing. Her second letter, however, was hand-written by Thelma herself and, beyond the interesting and intriguing information and stories filling the pages themselves, the heart, soul, and effort Thelma put into writing that letter touched my heart greatly.
Email is a great thing, of course. Michael and I still contact each other daily, but now we do so electronically. And, not only does email allow us to stay current, it is also a welcome pick-me-up in a long, tedious workday.
As far as my “Big Blue Marble” pen pal goes, I have no idea what happened to her. Our correspondence just lapsed and drifted away at some point, as childhood friendships are apt to do. Today, however, the world is smaller and such pen pal relationships are made more accessible with email—another plus in its favor.
But, I am glad my new pen pal relationship with Thelma is via snail mail. The deliberate intent that goes into writing a letter, as opposed to the casual throwaway of an email, is overwhelmingly humbling. Moreover, her letters have helped me recapture that feeling of excitement that only an unopened letter from a friend can conjure.
Thanks, Thelma.
Mechele R. Dillard is a staff writer with the Times-Courier in Ellijay, Ga. Her weekly column, “Beyond the Box,” can be accessed at www.beyondtheboxpublishing.com.
