I’ve been an inveterate letter correspondent since I was a little girl. I loved getting mail in the mailbox, because it was news from the outside. I was raised in what might be now termed a cult, in an environment of severe child abuse. But the letters existed outside of all that, in a clean, happy world where people wrote of the lives they led and everything was interesting.

I remember once that I did a stack of letters for the post office. My mother had agreed to drop them off on her way to work.

A couple days later, I got a call from one of the recipients, a lady that was a friend of my mother’s. I’d sent her a birthday card, but I’d expected my mother to hand deliver it so I’d just scrawled her name in big letters across the front. My mom, on “autopilot,” dropped it in the outgoing mailbox.

It got to its intended recipient.

This isn’t because it was such a long time ago. (Please, I’m not THAT old.) It had more to do with the size of the town where we lived. There were only about 5,000 people in the greater area, and everyone knew everyone else. I guess that the letter carrier knew the recipient and figured, what the heck, I’ll deliver it. The only admonishment was, next time, use a stamp.

We put the correct change for the stamp in an envelope and left it for the letter carrier on our route.

And who says the post office doesn’t bring people together?

What about you, Dear Reader? Do you like to send or receive mail? I love to; leave me a note in the comments and I’ll be happy to add you to my card list. Who knows – maybe I’ll even remember to address your envelope! 🙂