Pen Pals of My Youth and Beyond
By Jean Davidson, Maine My memory is a little fuzzy about my years in the third and fourth grades, but I do recall that was when I acquired my first pen pals: a girl in Arkansas, and another in Utah. In our childish handwriting we exchanged our little notes. It was around that time I discovered the delight of finding letters addressed to me in our mailbox. To increase my incoming mail, I sent off my nickel or dime and the required boxtops, then waited for the mailman to deliver that special de-coder ring or other gizmo that was advertised on my favorite radio shows. However, pen pals were the most fun, and I collected more as I grew older. In the fifth grade, I began writing to a girl named Elaine, who lived in a city in northern England. From her I learned that I was a "pen friend," not a pen pal. It wasn't long before we were exchanging birthday and Christmas gifts, and when Elizabeth II was crowned Queen, Elaine sent several souvenirs of the Coronation to me. I still use the Queen Elizabeth plate at holiday meals. Now, due to the cost of postage, our exchange of gifts is limited to scenic calendars. Elaine and her husband, who is retired from the Royal Air Force, once lived in faraway places, such as Hong Kong, Singapore, and Malta. In all these years, through marriages, children, and grand-children, we have never faltered in our long-distance friendship and are still going strong in our senior years, although most of our correspondence is by email these days. Another long-time pen pal was Ursula from West Germany, whom I had been writing to since eighth grade. She was a very intelligent girl who spoke three other languages. She married well, had one daughter, and lived in a penthouse, but suffered with illness most of her life. In her later years, while battling cancer, Ursula came to America for a visit, traveling by herself on the ocean liner, the QEII, to New York City and staying at the Waldorf. On one day of her trip, she took a shuttle flight to Portland, Maine, where my husband and I met her at the airport. Although she wasn't feeling that well, she had a wonderful time as we showed her around the city, visited the Portland Head Light House, and ate lobster in a restaurant. She flew back to New York later that day, finished her vacation, then returned to Europe on the Concord. Not long after that her letters stopped. I also had the pleasure of meeting my British pen pal Elaine and her husband. Several years ago, when they were traveling through Canada, we met them at Niagara Falls and spent an enjoyable day site-seeing. Another time, they visited us at our home in Maine, staying for two weeks. We went on drives to the coast and the lakes and just relaxed on our porch. Unfortunately, we have not been able to visit them in return. As I entered my teen years, girls here and there across the country and Canada joined my list of pen pals and kept me busy swapping postcards and writing letters. Then I added two girls in Australia -who never sent their photographs, a girl in Honolulu - who came from a very large family and worked in the Dole Pineapple factory, and a girl in Singapore who was studying to be a teacher. She sent me a lovely fan and two sets of fancy chopsticks, wrote about mean landladies, and monkeys outside of her bedroom window. Although I have an adequate supply of newer pen pals now, I will never forget those I had in my younger days. They broadened my horizons and taught me about their regions, culture, and traditions. And I learned that people are basically the same all over the world. Their photos are still in my old album, their gifts still scattered around my house, and most of their letters are tucked away in a closet. Someday, when I'm in the mood, when a snowstorm is raging outside, I'll sit by the woodstove's crackling fire with a cup of cocoa, and I'll reread all my old pen pal letters again.
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