The Letter Exchange

There are often special postcards and special mailing stations at popular tourist destinations, especially ones on islands. But Vanuatu, a country composed of 83 islands, has the distinction of having the first underwater post office, opened 20 years ago this month, as well as a volcano postbox. (There are also underwater postboxes in Japan and Malaysia, and an underwater stamping station in Norway.)

Here's a recent article about the renewed popularity of non-digital communicating, with an emphasis on pens and stationery. It also mentions sending cards and letters, and the difference between the type of thinking process encouraged by writing letters by hand instead of typing.

We came across a YouTube channel about mail recently: "Mail with Mr. ZIP." It's short computer-generated animations with music for kids about a mail carrier's adventures delivering mail - and while packages are included, some of the mail he delivers is actual personal envelopes, in bright colors.

"Letter writers," books of instructions on how to write letters (usually focusing on the etiquette), were popular in the past, especially in the 19th century. But they're still around - here's a recent one that not only includes some thoughts on the modern version of etiquette, but also explores the related paraphernalia and techniques and includes examples from famous writers of the past. A blog review calls it "a very enjoyable read."

Here's an article we came upon recently about a long-term correspondence between a newspaper reporter and a dairy farmer in Pennsylvania.

Over the last few years we've mentioned several articles about surprising animals that interfere with the mail - not just dogs and cats, but seagulls as well. Here's an article about another postal bird problem - a hawk.

Letter writing was a popular topic for the famous painters of the past. Vermeer was an example, and three of his paintingss of women and letters will be on display at the Frick Collection in New York this summer. This article gives more information and large pictures of two of the paintings, and this press release has small pictures of all three.

That's a good description of Lex, whose subscribers send mail all year round. But outside of Lex, there are also observances such as National Card and Letter Writing Month...

For decades there have been programs to match students from different schools - especially in different countries - as pen pals. Even in the digital age the activity continues, though probably more sporadically. Now there's a different twist on the idea - a project that matches young students with a particular breed of dog.

Blogs from people who have continued (or returned to) writing physical letters in the digital age are fairly common. Here are two of them - a longish article aimed at a senior audience although the blog writer is 30 years old, and a shorter one aimed at those who aren't quite 30 yet.

A lot of people collect old postcards for the pictures, and often for the glimpses of the history of the places shown. Here's an article about a different use of old postcards - researching one's genealogy. And in the process, the author of the article became interested in sending postcards as well, particularly through Postcrossing

Sometimes people write fan letters to the authors of books they've read, and most of the time, at best, they get a form letter in reply. But here's an article about a long-term correspondence with a famous author that began with a letter written shortly after a radio interview.

Last month we linked to a project in Humboldt County, California, that uses old postcards to document the area's history. Here's another link to that site, featuring a card whose writer uses a humorous reference to Robert Burns' famous rendering of an old Scottish song for a purpose familiar to most people who've ever written postcards or letters - prompting the recipient for a reply.

Occasionally one reads about mail - usually a postcard, perhaps because they're small and thin - that got lost in the postal system for years and was finally delivered. That's not the only way mail can show up decades later, though. Here's a story about a group of postcards from a century ago that were found at an auction and sent to the descendants of the writer.

The text at this site is not very exciting...but the classic Peanuts cartoons are worth reading, including one that might be the beginning of the "pencil-pal" motif that ran through the strip for a long time.

We often hear that the number of letters people are writing continues to drop - and here's a site with a chart showing a 35% decrease in the U.S. during the 9-year period ending a year ago. After that dim statistic, though, the site goes on to explore the value of snail mail pen pals and mail art, with examples from a group of high school students in California. Ironically, despite the fact that the web is often blamed for the decrease in physical letters, this article mentions that posting pictures of snail mail envelopes online can inspire more people to create physical mail art.

Nowadays the main focus for postal services sometimes seems to be package delivery, or maybe it's junk mail, with the continued decline in personal correspondence by mail. But in other times and places, post offices did everything from reporting the local temperature to performing marriage ceremonies. An exhibit at a museum in New Zealand details some of what the post offices (and the old telephone systems) used to do.

The second full week in January is Universal Letter Writing Week, and this year retired letter carrier Carol Christmas challenges everyone to write a letter - or at least a card or note - each day.

Stories about postcard collections often focus on the pictures on the cards, sometimes from a standpoint of history, especially if the collection is of cards from a particular location or a particular time period. Other times they focus on the content of what people wrote on the cards - here's one of those.