Visiting Ado

It’s been awhile since I posted about old postcards, so for those of you new to my old bloggy-wog: one of the things I have an interest in is old postcards.  I love them blank or with writing (they are two very different artifacts!).  I adore finding collections of these in antique or specialty stores and spending hours poring over them.

Old postcards with writing are especially fascinating: they are glimpses into the past.  The off-hand messages written by people (almost certainly now dead, written to people also now dead) who never expected long-distant strangers to be buying their postcards and reading the messages and pondering the lives of those in the past–it can often take my breath away.  In addition, the evolution of the postal service (and by extension, our culture at large) can be traced via how the postcards are addressed, stamped, and postmarked.  And the postcards themselves are beautiful and delightful artifacts, themselves changing in style and purpose about every two decades.

Anyway, I recently came across an enormous cache of old Harrisburg postcards at a local bookstore and my postcard interest has been renewed.  I present to you here one that I just bought today.

This postcard is from the early 1930s.  Almost anytime you see a postcard in this style–artist’s renderings in vibrant colors with a white border–they are from the ’30s.  It shows what was then the Harrisburg Educational Building (now the State Archives):

The back, postmarked August 14th, 1933 (that’s 82 years ago, folks!) in Philadelphia, and sent to Marietta, PA (a town about 30 miles from Harrisburg).  It is of interest that a Harrisburg postcard was sent from Philadelphia to a town near Harrisburg.  Elements of the address are of interest.  It was sent to:

Mrs. Frank Ziegler
Front St
Marietta Lanc Co
Penn

Of course the whole Mrs. Frank Ziegler isn’t surprising for the time, but given how the world has changed since then, it is of interest.  The street address being simply Front St with no number speaks to a much simpler time, at  least mail-wise, if nothing else.  Note the absence of a zip code.  The inclusion of the county was, I believe, even strange for the time period–I’ve never seen it before.

The text of the postcard is thus:

Monday, August 14, 1933

Dear Aunt Mabel

Dorothy and Marion are bringing Mother to Marietta to visit Mrs. Peck, so I decided since I wasn’t nursing I would like to bring Bob and myself along with them and stay all night with you then go to Quarryville on Thursday to visit Ado.  That would mean four of us staying at your house Wednesday nite.  [name I can’t read], Marion, Bob & I.  Hope it is OK, See you Wed, Mimmie

The Scent of Bitter Almonds, and etc, etc.

1.  Nothing says “I’m a boring person” quite like posting pictures of your alcoholic beverage to Facebook.  Seriously.  You went out to a bar or club and you think the interesting thing that is supposed to happen is the drink itself?  Uninteresting, repetitive pictures of the person you’re with, or even another selfie, are more interesting than a beverage in a glass.  We’ve got the whole internet, and you want us to look at a beverage.

2.  I’ve brought this up before, but I just have to keep digging at this one.  Why are there two kinds of screws and screw drivers, ie flat head and Philips head?  I’m not over here like, meh, there should only be one kind! I am confident there are very good reasons for there being multiple kinds of screws, but I just for the life of me can’t figure out what those reasons are.  Anyone with any insight, please comment!

3.  War is terrible, but man, for a nation so young, we’ve had two very interesting wars!  I’ll be damned if the Revolution and the Civil War aren’t two of the most amazing stories ever told.

4.  With Philip Seymour Hoffman dead, the greatest actor of this generation (ie the generation currently the correct age to play the most interesting parts in the kind of films that get made the majority of the time) is James Franco.  Discuss.

5.  I get pretty tired of taking the trash out.  I mean, we really just have to keep doing this?

6.  Look at this picture of my dad and sister on vacation in Brigantine, NJ in 1980.  What’s not to love about this picture?  I want to sit on a porch listening to that radio, wearing those socks, next to a child dressed like that:

7.  I recently asked a few friends of mine which baseball team they would like, if they had only to consider the teams uniforms/ colors and logo.  Where you grew up and your previous loyalty should be not considered.  I got a few interesting answers—Billhanna said the Astros, which was a damned good answer.  My answer?  The Marlins or Blue Jays.

8.  Gabriel Garcia Marquez died this week.  He is one of my (and many others’) favorite novelists.  His most famous book is “One Hundred Years of Solitude”, which I love, but my favorite book of his is “Love in the Time of Cholera”, a book about a man who is obsessed/in love with one woman for his whole life, and dedicates his whole life to being with her.  It sounds creepy, and at times, it is, but what I love so much about it is that it is the only work of art in any medium that I have ever encountered that treats the obsessive side of love with the tender and insightful kind of care that most people reserve for “romantic” love.  It is a game-changer of a book.  Here is the first sentence from that book: “It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”

9.  I understand you didn’t ask for my postcard or letter in the mail, and I understand, in this day and age, you’re not really sure how to respond to such antiquities.  I really don’t care too much.  Ideally you’d send a letter back, but I’m not expecting that.  You can ignore it.  That’s fine, you didn’t ask for it.  You can text me a response, which is the main thing people do, and that’s fine, if a bit gaudy.  But please, please…don’t post a picture of it on Facebook.

10.  What about this?

 

Some day no longer will you doubt me

Postmark: January 10th, 1910 (that’s 113 years ago, folks).
From Eaton, NY, to Earlville (?) NY

Front:

Back:

 

Dear Brother

I will drop you a card and let you know that I am living and hope you are the same.  Well Frank

after “Well Frank” I can’t make this out, but I’m incredibly interested.  Reader help in transcribing this one would be much appreciated.  Remember, if you click on the image, you can get a full-screen version of it (this won’t help much if you’re on your phone).  I find this card, with the front image, the handwriting, the year, and the brother-sister relationship to be very unique…help me figure out what it says.

Birthday Greetings, 1910

Front of card:

Back of card.  Postmarked on June 14th, 1910, in Cape Vincent, NY, being sent to Limerick, NY:

Dear little Nephew:

have been thinking of you all day so I am sending you a card.  I hope that you are enjoying your birthday and wish you “many happy returns of the day”.  With love from Aunt Beatrice.

The Echo of an Axe

There is, of course, no stronger force in the universe than the passage of time, regardless of what the scientists say.  Enough time, stacked up, has more power than the gravity of any star, more gusto than the hugest electromagnet.

I can’t stop buying old postcards at antique shops.  That may sound made up, but I’m serious (I’ve blogged about it before here.)  The more and more I look for them, the older ones I am capable of finding.  I’ve found a few from as far back as 1904, with messages written on them that sound like they could be from yesterday, but they’re from over a hundred years ago.  The person who wrote it is dead.  Their vacation, however marvelous, has been vacated from the scorecard of life.  Their fun in the sun is now just a scribble.  The postmarks have remained almost the same all this time, though.  That’s kind of amazing when you think about it.  One hundred years.  That’s a long time for anything to remain unchanged.

I write postcards to people, too.  Someday my vacations will be vacated by the steady march of inevitability, as well.  So it goes.

I like to buy vinyl records.  This is no secret.  For most of my time as a vinyl hobbyist, I’ve actually bought new music that is released on vinyl.  But recently, I’ve taken a shine to the older stuff.  When I pull that big black circle out of a deteriorating cardboard sleeve that smells of must, I imagine what it may have been through: maybe owned by ten different people, maybe just one who treasured it their whole life, maybe sold to three different used record stores, maybe a yard sale or two.  But what strikes me the most about these old records (I recently bought a record of Russian composer Dmitri Khachaturian’s Concerto for Violin and Orchestra from 1942 for a buck from a Goodwill store) is how they seem to be stranded in time, holding their precious music in their grooves, waiting inert over the years for someone to pick them up, pull them out, and take the important final step of actually setting a needle down on them to unleash their precious cargo.  The music is always on there, but it can wait fifty years to be released.  It could wait longer if it had to.  I don’t understand where the music is when the needle isn’t down, but it’s there somewhere.  The record owns it, holds it tight to its chest.

If a historian or biographer were so inclined to write a book on my life and they chose to write about the period when I actually had love interests or “girlfriends”, one would find, I suspect, despite having had many trysts, you could narrow down my “major” love interests throughout my life to just three.  An argument could be made for a fourth, but you really don’t care about that.  I am now 35 years old, and all three of those major love interests have been over for a long time, and all-but forgotten, by myself and them too, I’m sure.  But somehow, the world conspired for two of them to get married last week.  The chances of it happening seem astronomical, and I’m sure they are.  I didn’t attend either wedding, though I was invited to both, but only because work and distance kept me away.  Too much time has passed for there to be any heartbreak involved for me in such ceremony.  But the way that such an event made me feel time was the real cruelty.  To make me go simultaneously back to both those relationships, and force my mind into tracing the arc of time from then to now…I have a great life, don’t get me wrong, but time is so long, it frightens me.  Like looking at the ocean from inside the basket of a very high hot air balloon.

I’m in my cardboard sleeve, holding my music close to my chest.

Why don’t you get mail from me?

I enjoy sending mail.  Yes, physical mail, via the United States Postal Service.  Postcards, letters, little booklets or artsy fartsy projects I make.  It’s mostly pointless, meaningless nonsense, or rambling run-on sentences.  There’s just something I love about people I like or care about receiving something tangible from me, even if I’m not really saying much.  In this era of our culture, when all communication is electronic and all looks alike and is compressed and abbreviated and utilitarian, I get a kick out of harkening back to an older time, and connecting on a different level.

Over the years, I’ve built up a sizeable “mailing list” of freinds and family members who I mail these assorted missives to.  Looking over it, it comprises a fantastic cross-section of my life.  Folks from all eras of my past, as well as my present, and from a fantastic geographic array are represented.  So I ask you, dear reader, why the hell don’t you get mail from me?

It comes sporadically.  Sometimes you might get one piece of mail from me a year, sometimes two things in one week.  It depends very much upon my whimsy.  But if you’re reading this, chances are I wouldn’t mind sending you some thoughts or artistic claptrap occasionally.  You should probably give me your address.

Leave your address in the comments here (you don’t have to register to comment on this blog), or if you’re not comfortable with doing that, send me a Facebook message or e-mail me at sdellinger1978@gmail.com, or if you have my cell number you can text it to me.  I mean really, who doesn’t want mail?

 

Eleanor Keeps Running Around

Many of you know that I am a big fan of using “snail mail”.  I send plenty of postcards, letters, and larger, miscellaneous package-type things.  I love the idea that something that was just in my hands, or was created or written by me, can be in your hands and your possession just a few days later.

I’m an especially big fan of the postcard, with its picture on the front that you can either choose to write about or ignore completely, and the very limited space for writing on the back, forcing you to be very judicious with your words.

So yesterday, when my mother and I were out browsing at the local antique stores, I was naturally curious when I saw a bin full of old postcards.  I was even more delighted—and then moved beyond almost all measure–when I started reading the messages written on the backs of some of these postcards.  I bought the ones that moved me the most, and knew I’d have to share them with you on here.

I don’t think you need me to over-explain what is so moving about these.  I’d love to see some comments on here about your feelings and interpretations and what these mean to you.  What I’ve done is scanned the front and back of each, and then typed the text underneath, including the date it was sent, either from the postmark or something written on the postcard.  Let me know how these make you feel.

Sent from Ocean City, NJ, to Bridgeton, NJ.  Not sure of date, but possibly 1975.

Mother dear,

Your letter here when we arrived at 6.  Will write you tomorrow.  Do not bother with sending flowers, we now expect to go Elmer’s Fri and wouldn’t be here and its too much bother for you.  Lidie is at Elmers now.  Saw them last night.

–e

Sent from Disney World, Florida, to Bridgeton, NJ, 1972

Hi

Well we got hear today. It sure is great! I bet you’d like it hear. I never seen anything like it.

Love,

Aunt Ida, Uncle Dan

No date or location information; appears to maybe not have been sent. Seems to be pretty damn old, though. I’m open to various interpretations of the third sentence, either in its meaning or my reading of the handwriting.

Dear cousins.  I gathered some violets today.  Paul can walk when he holds to something.  The clock don’t get tired now.  Tell Robert I saw some jack rabbits coming from town.  Baby has 5 teeth.  from Keith.

Sent from Chicago to Ephrata, PA, 1932

Johnnie and I “did” Chicago yesterday–both day & night. We’re making good time and should be in Yellowstone by the end of the week.  We’re spending the night in a log cabin with a creek at our back door.  –Dot R

Sent from Springfield, Missouri, to Ephrata, PA, 1944.  It is of note that the recipient of this postcard is almost certainly the author of the previous one, a miss Dorothy “Dot” Schmeck, who signed the previous postcard (from 12 years before this one) as “Dot R”.

Dear Dot,

Your letter was swell and you need never apologize about it.  I was happy to get it and hope you keep up the good work.  Don’t get a paper and Eleanor keeps running around so you may keep me up on the hometown news.  Keep Eleanor toned down to her level now that I’m not there to do it.
Too bad about the men that must go into the service.  Wish it would end soon, don’t you?  Didn’t know you were worried about the male situation?  Guess it is serious, isn’t it?
Kids are OK the way I feel now.  So don’t be too sorry.  This is interesting work, tho.
How about writing me back to make up for the months you didn’t know?

Mim

Sleepwalking

As most, if not all, of my readers know, I am a major practitioner of writing to people.  Like, the old school way, with paper and pen and sending it through the mail.  I write to a good many people on a regular basis.  This correspondence often takes many forms:  from simple “keeping in touch” to pure goofiness to artistic musings.  I usually write on postcards, but I have been known to also write full-fledged letters.

I tell you all this now because the following blog entry is a letter that I just finished writing to someone, and one of my personal rules had always been that my personal correspondence and my public posting would always remain seperate, but once I got done with the letter, I realized it was more of a blog entry on paper than a letter.  Also, a few of you may have got/ may soon get an earlier version of this letter or a smaller version on a postcard, as the ideas and words were forming and coalescing into a longer-form letter.  I just wanted to write this disclaimer so that none of you who recieve this correspondence think I’m somehow cheating.  99% of the time, you are recieving completely original, one-of-a-kind writing samples from me.

For the sake of the blog, I have titled this letter “Sleepwalking”:

Sleepwalking

Dear ___________,

Sometimes I wish I sleepwalked.  It just seems to me like a good way for your body to take a long awaited break from your mind.  My mind often takes breaks from my body, but never vice-versa.

Certainly, sometimes the body is steering the mind—while enjoying a great slice of pizza, laying helpless during a blowjob, fear-stricken when you hear someone in the hallway.  But steering the mind is a far cry from taking a break from the mind—no more than steering a car is taking a walk.

I’d like to think that my body has a secret life.  A life kept secret from and seperate from my mind, with it’s own desires, it’s own needs, it’s own dreams, that are somehow never made known to me in my waking life.  Two me’s, two versions of me, quietly warring and making peace countless times without ever really knowing it, their shadow battle quietly fading into nothing with the advent of my dust.

I like to picture my body, divorced from my mind, wandering my dark apartment, picking up knick-knacks and cushions and turning them over in my calm hands.  Without the burden of memory, my precious objects will have less meaning, or more.  Feel the heft of that bookcase, run your hands over the smoothness of that table, the warmth of the apples in the basket.

–Seth