Did you have one as a kid, do you have one now? My answer would be yes to the first - no to the second.
There was a time, when children had their own magazines to read. They were filled with stories, ideas, adventures, crafts, puzzles, things to do, things to experience, things to think about. Better yet, they encouraged children to read.
At the back of the magazine was the advertisement section - this is where you found a section with a heading of Pen Pals. You would see names and ages of children who desired to write a letter to another child somewhere in the world. I can't remember if the addresses were there as well, I think they were.
So you selected a child in some far away place that you had never even imagined, and you wrote a letter and posted it off.
The best part was the anticipation of getting a response! When you received that first communication back from your pen pal, you couldn't wait to write another letter... and so it went.
Writing to a pen pal, was a great way for children to learn the art of writing, to learn how to communicate, it opened their eyes to other countries, cultures and traditions, and it connected them to real people in a very tangible way.
It's a shame this practice fell out of favour. The process of writing with a pen or pencil on paper, folding the paper, addressing the envelope and taking it to the post office and watching it be mailed is a really good thing for a child to learn. To say nothing of practicing the art of writing - things like grammar, sentence structure, spelling, all those things that seem to be disappearing from our language at an alarming rate.
I don't know about you, but the pathetic overuse of the work "like" in conversation just really sets me off. The word like being inserted in every other word of of sentence... "Like - just makes no sense"!
I digress...
My dear friend who recently passed away had a pen pal from Sweden. They stared writing to each other when they were quite young, and they kept up that practice for over 50 years. Over the years they shared their lives through letters, and when the Internet became available, they communicated through emails. I heard from my friend's pen pal yesterday, and she was devastated to hear of her friend's passing - a friend she would have never known or grow to love, if not for a little advertisement in the back of some magazine so many years ago.
Technology has brought convenience, but it has also brought laziness. It's so easy to fire off an email! So why write a letter when you can abbreviate an emoji - filled message that says the same thing?
Why indeed?
My old-fashioned belief that we all need to step away from the convenient aspect of our lives once in awhile is frowned upon - I know this. But no one will ever convince me that the way we are headed as a species of intelligent human beings, is superior to where we have already been.
If you are interested in finding out more about current-day pen pal trends - check out this blog...it's informative and filled with links to get you to your own pen pal of the future.
Happy letter writing!
https://www.thereadingresidence.com/find-pen-pals/
I loved having a pen pal in grade 5. The teacher chose me out of the whole class to write to a girl in MI in the USA. (I think that was where she lived) We kept it up for a year, then she got tired of it. I used to write to my Mom's older friends and to my aunts; they must have loved it as they were lonely. BUT nowadays due to my letters taking around 2 whole weeks to arrive at their destination, I so enjoy the complete SPEED and EASE of emails. I write very informative emails; similar to my chatty letters of old. This year due to the strike at Canada post, I decided to write a PDF email that was 6 letters long for my Christmas letter. I also made a digital Christmas card. I really enjoyed doing this. I wish I would get chatty email letters in return, but no one even writes that kind of letter anymore. I think the whole human race prefers to TEXT and that I just can't handle....
ReplyDeletePS: I can't edit my post above. lol I meant my PDF Christmas letter was 6 PAGES long...
ReplyDeleteI had a pen pal from Turkey, briefly. It was hard to relate to her. But super interesting!
ReplyDelete