I grew up in a postcard-sending family. In the early years, our travels took us mostly to state parks in the Midwest where we would search through wobbly, metal, spinning postcard racks at local gift shops. With a list of addresses and a handful of postcard stamps at the ready, writing postcards was an easy and expected routine. It was what we did.
While early travels had me sending postcards from a limited range of destinations, the postcards we received were from places unlimited. Over the years, our postcard collection grew to the hundreds. Add to that my parents’ and grandparents’ collections and we were rich in postcards. It wasn’t unusual to get out the boxes, sift through, and reorganize the postcards by date, sender, region, or some other regimen.
When the kids were born—actually before they were born—my parents began sending them postcards. Over the years these postcards were scattered around the house in boxes, on shelves, under beds, tucked into books, pinned to bulletin boards, taped to windows, and in all manner of disarray. Eventually, I’d gather them up and tuck them away in drawer of their own.
I cherish seeing my parents’ handwriting on these postcards. Sometimes I wonder where they wrote them and what they were thinking. I entertain the idea of them scouting postcard stands and carefully choosing each one. Yet part of me knows the postcards were often a quick purchase at the airport on the way home. Regardless, my dad, with stamps in his pocket (along with his jackknife, mini address book, and mechanical pencil), was always ready for a postcard moment.
I realized that these postcards told a story—a shared story of my parents’ travels and the growth of the kids. The early postcards contained short sentences carefully printed for easy reading. As time went by the postcards were written in cursive and imparted more insight or humor. An endearing feature was the question that typically ended the message. On the postcard sent in 1998 of a full moon lighting up the Colorado night sky, my dad asks my son, “Where does the moon go during the day?” On another to my son of the New York City skyline in winter, “Where do you think they put all the snow in New York City after a heavy snow fall?”
Looking back, some of the messages are prophetic, like the one of the Sistine Chapel my dad sent to my daughter when she was one year old. On the back, he wrote “I hope you are able to see this someday.” Sure enough, 19 years later we bought the same postcard from the gift shop at the Sistine Chapel.
Several years ago, I had each kid’s postcards spiral bound in chronological order. These “postcard books” contain a treasured history, a collection of connections between grandparents and their grandchildren.
I still send postcards and collect them for myself while on trips. Maybe doing so is a little homage to my parents and a beautiful routine I just can’t pass up.
Do you have a postcard you treasure? Why and who was it from? How do you keep it?
[Photography by Moon Lake Multimedia. All rights reserved.]
Lori
What a beautiful idea to spiral bind all of your kids’ postcards into a book! This is motivating me to send some postcards to friends and family on my next international trip — or even on my next local trip to somewhere in Minnesota.
Margie
Postcards can make such long and lasting connections! Many years ago, out of the blue, my father-in-law Robert received a package from a stranger in England. It was filled with postcards addressed to the home in which my in-laws resided, but to a previous owner. The man who sent them, Ian, was a postcard collector. On the chance that the addressee still lived in the house, he sent them, along with a letter explaining how he came to have them. Robert wrote back thanking him, and a long-lived correspondence developed between the two, what we used to call “pen-pals”. Robert and Ian never got the chance to meet, but my family made a trip to England in 2010 and spent five days with Ian and his family. Even though Robert is now gone, my husband carries on the letter-writing tradition, keeping our friendship with Ian intact. How did all those postcards, addressed to a home in Madison, Wisconsin, end up at a flea market in rural western England? That question was never answered, but it doesn’t really matter; the serendipitous friendship remains.
SheKeeps
Margie, I loved reading your comment. What a fascinating story! Wonderful how Ian’s unexpected overture led to a lasting friendship with your family.
Lisa Golden Schroeder
The walls of my office are covered with postcards–art I love, travel far and near, history, my own promotional postcards for my food business–they keep the walls intact. I just returned from a trip to London, where I continued my obsessive search for just the right ones to be pinned up upon my return. If I ever took them down I’m afraid the wallboard would crumble! They make my office my own, very personalized sanctuary.
Joan
I am feeling guilty now because I used to buy and send postcards but in the past few years I’ve stopped. I take so long to find the one I want to send, and then more often than not I never get it sent. But I love the sustained walk into the past you and your kids can have through the postcard booklets! It’s a great idea. Maybe I will look at buying postcards differently from now on.