Letters

Just the other day a friend of mine mentioned that his wife was writing letters. It seems that during confinement she wrote letters to those people she normally saw everyday. I thought that was rather unusual in this day of email and electronic communication.

People just don't write letters anymore. 

"Gimme a ticket for an airplane

Ain't got time for a fast train 

Lonely days are gone

I'm a goin' home

My baby wrote me a letter!" 

The Boxtops

That song was before the days of email and messaging. I know our smartphone beeps and tablet buzzes and maybe a cheery female voice announces, " You've got mail!" from your desktop. But it's not quite the same as ripping open an envelope for a message. 

Letters have been a method of communication for centuries.Half of the Christian Bible's New Testament is made up of the letters of the apostle Paul. And people had communicated in letters hundreds of years before he did.The Egyption papyrus scrolls come to mind.

Many famous letters have survived today. Napoleon's letters to his dear Josephine come to mind. 

"So you thought that I did not love you for yourself! For what, then? Oh Madame, did you really think this? Could such an unworthy feeling have been

conceived by such a pure spirit? I am still astonished at it, but less however than at the feeling which on my awakening brings me back to your feet, without resentment and without willpower. It is certainly impossible to be weaker or further abased. What then is your strange power, incomparable Josephine? One of your thoughts poisons my life, tears my soul apart... but a stronger feeling, a less sensitive mood, takes hold of me, draws me back and rules me again as if I were guilty. I truly feel that if we quarrel I should close my heart... And you mio dolce amor - Have you spared me even two thoughts?!!! I kiss you three times, once on your heart, once on your lips and once on your eyes."

Or maybe the letters of Abigail Adams to her husband, John, the second president of the United States. 

“ I long to hear that have declared an independency. And, by the way, in the new code of laws which I suppose it will be necessary for you to make, I desire you would remember the ladies and be more generous and favorable to them than your ancestors. Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of the husbands.”

Winston Churchill, aged 16, writes home to his mother, Lady Randolph Churchill, from Harrow, in November 1890, requesting a visit from his nanny, Elizabeth Ann Everest.

"Darling Mummy, I am getting on all right and am learning lots each day. One line to tell you I am well, happy tho' very tired... Please send Everest down, because she can help me in some work. I now send you my youthful love and remain your loving son..."

The letters of military men writing home are some of the most telling of the true story of war of loneliness of homesickness.I can testify to this. Here is such al letter from a soldier in Vietnam, 1st Lt. Dean Allen, to his wife.

There are many times while I am out in the field that I really feel the need to talk to you. Not so much about us but what I have on my mind. Being a good platoon leader is a lonely job. It got so dark I had to stop last night. …

Writing like that doesn’t really do that much good because you aren’t here to answer me or discuss something. I guess it helps a little though because you are the only one I would say these things to. Maybe sometime I’ll even try to tell you how scared I have been or am now. … Sometimes I really wonder how I’ll make it. My luck is running way to good right now. I just hope it lasts.

Don’t worry about what I have said, these are just things I think about sometimes. I am so healthy I can’t get a day out of the field and you know I’m to damn mean to die. …

Sorry I haven’t written more but the weather is against me. You can’t write out here when it rains hour after hour.

I love you with all my heart.

All my love always, 

Dean

 As a sailor during the Vietnam War I can truly attest to the benefit of letters from home. On the aircraft carriers I served on the most popular plane was the COD, the mail plane. When it landed aboard ship, the crew of almost 1000

would find out almost instantly. Soon those magic words, "mail call", echoed throughout the ship. Each recipient would grab his letter and find a quiet spot to discover and devour its contents. 

Things have changed with the advent of electronic media. We can instantly send messages with our smartphones, tablets and desktop computers.  No one writes letters anymore. Except maybe octogenarians. And they even write in cursive. Another skill that has fallen by the wayside. In today's electronic media proper grammar and usage are usually non-existant. Initially due to the restrictions of some electronic media, common phrases were abbreviated. The most common was LOL for "laugh out loud". Followed closely by BTW for "by the way". There are over 100 common abbreviations used on Twitter.

Could it be there no longer will there be collections of grandmothers of family letters or other collectors of communications on paper? 

How do we preserve generations of personal communiques? It is all electronic. We could save all of our emails and Tweets on our electronic devices.  But, who would do that? And storage would soon be full.  However, I am sure Google and other telecommunication giants will keep them all in their vast server banks forever!

Perhaps one day in the distant future a teenager may discover a vintage recording of  "The Letter"  and speculate with youthful curiosity of exactly what a letter was.