News & Events
Mid-America
News
Show
Calendar
State Event Calendars
Regular Features
The
Antique Detective
Antique
Detective Q&A
Common Sense Antiques
Editor's Notebook
Reflecting History
Refurnished
Thoughts
Traveling with Ken
Good Eye
Discover
Mid-America
Marketplace
Books
for Collectors
Directories
& Classifieds
The
Finder: Unique Shops
Lodgings Directory
Museum Directory
Aviation Museums
Wineries in the Heartland
Classifieds
Archived Features
Helpful
Hints
for Collectors
Is This An Antique?
Heirloom
Recipes
Discover Mid-America — November 2006
 |
Postcard realities
by Bruce Rodgers, Editor/Publisher
Ken Weyand, our senior contributing editor — “senior,” in this case connotes experience, not age — likes his postcards. As Ken alludes to in this month’s feature story, postcards can be a family connection that holds the past and accompanying memories alive for another generation. I’m sure Ken, because of that connection, still occasionally mails a postcard to a grandchild in the hopes that decades from now another relative will discover that same postcard buried in the family’s attic.
It’s a touching thought and in some ways beats leaving behind a CD or video of a “where we’ve been and what we did” experience. Why? Because the sender of the postcard undoubtedly took the time to write something on the card — a pen or pencil across paper still seems more relevant than keying in letters across an LCD screen. A short message on a picture postcard can cause the postcard recipient to imagine the experience beyond the message.
When did you last write something on the back of a postcard and sent it off to a friend or relative? I bet it’s been awhile, if ever.
With the advent of telephones, then cell phones and email, fewer people write and send postcards. Kids might still do it, sorta like riding the merry-go-round at the county fair because mom and dad once did it.
The Post Office doesn’t do near the volume of postcards it once did. I’m sure some postal workers, when they do run across one, treat it as quaint method of communication and maybe take a moment to read the message — likely violating postal regulations.
I would bet that some postal workers get confused when seeing one. How do I know this? Because when we sent out postcards announcing our change of address a few came back to us, even though our new address was on the left side — or message area — of the postcard and whom we sent it too was on the right — or address side — of the postcard. So much for the vaulted efficiency of the U.S. Postal Service.
I still occasionally buy and receive postcards. Three are tacked next to my desk in my office. One, I bought for myself as a reminder of my trip with my son to the Cayman Islands; another is of a polar bear on a small ice floe, bringing to mind our responsibility to the earth and its inhabitants; and one is from a deceased writer friend sent from Greece in 1993. It’s a tasteful, sensual image of a woman’s breast photographed with a centuries-old structure.
I sometimes turned it over and read the message. She was a teacher also, someone unusual in her independence and thinking, years ahead of others from her generation.
Postcards do that, reminding the sender and receiver of connections that seem more real and lasting than the electronics we surround ourselves with now.
Bruce Rodgers can be contacted at publisher@discoverypub.com.
> Editor’s Notebook Archive — past columns