How many of you can remember the excitement of collecting the stash of envelopes dropped through the mail slot or left in the mailbox every afternoon, Monday to Friday? I do. They were (and are) stories tucked inside an envelope. My favorite letters came from Gran, my beloved grandmother. It didn’t matter that we talked on the phone at least once a week. I mean, it did matter, but the added pleasure of a real pen or pencil on paper letter tucked in an envelope allowed me to feel the warmth and love of every word shared within.

Gran wrote the best letters. And, often enough, her letters arrived within days of each other. If she had a story to share, one of her many life stories, she wrote it down. Right away. And sent it to one, or all of us in the family. It wasn’t the simple Dear Emily, How are you? I am fine type of letter. It wasn’t the acronym-laced dribble that thrives on texts and emails. It was a REAL letter.

Dec. 1/62

Had a glimpse of Mrs. Clark and her friend but didn’t get a chance to speak to them. It was rather nasty when we came out. The fog was bad and the people were coming from the Football Games, so it was nice to get home. That miserable fog came in over the downtown.

Simple comments about people, events, and, of course, the weather. All combined into a lengthy, cursive-written sharing of daily happenings.

After I moved out on my own, there were letters exchanged between my parents and me, and, sometimes between my siblings. My husband, a naval officer, spent months and sea and sent me regular missives of his journeys and experiences.

There was one year while visiting home, I complained about the shortage of letters in previous months. To ensure that I had a full mailbox by the time I returned to my home, on the opposite side of the country, Dad started writing to me while I was still visiting:

December 26, 1979

Dear Emily;

It is probably silly to write to you while you are upstairs but if we get a few letters ahead this way perhaps we can help you to avoid your feeling of remoteness. Remoteness from both family and the dollars needed for long-distance telephoning.

As I try to think of things to say I am also trying to decode the strange noise from upstairs. At first, I think it is the sewing machine but the sewing machine usually runs in short bursts as each individual seam is prepared and stitched then a pause for the next seam.

I don’t recall the nature of the noise Dad described, but, in his usual manner, he had created an elaborate tale of a simple happening, in this case, a noise. Dad’s letters always shared an element of his sense of humor, something he was well known for, something not translatable into the quirky, minimalistic correspondence of the high-tech era.

Other letters I cherish are historical documents of a time and a place long gone. We also had a lot of missionary friends. When they lived in their remote community way up North, they would write us long newsy letters. It was a big event when these letters arrived in the mailbox. After supper, Mom would read the letters to us while we sat around the dinner table. Margaret Marsh, the wife to Henry Marsh, Bishop of Yukon in the 1960s, wrote many long letters, newsy stories about her life so far away from us. Life in Yukon in the 1960s was compared to pioneer living as communities across the territory were isolated and remote with no connecting transportation route, other than by air or, in the summer months, by riverboat.

Notes and Nuggets from Margaret Marsh

Lent, 1966

OUR CHURCH IN THE YUKON WENT TO THE DOGS

The time of the final dog sled races of Yukon’s sourdough Rendezvous was set for Sunday morning at the holy hour of Morning Prayer. Since the dogs couldn’t and the crowd wouldn’t come to church we took the church to them.

The races started and finished on the Yukon River in front of the White Pass Station where the narrow gauge railroad tracks terminate. When the last dog was just out of sight beyond the beached paddlewheels on the 14-mile frozen river course, the service began. It was planned to be finished by the time the first sled was in sight.

…

It was glorious. It was liberating. I wasn’t fastened to a pew and there was no roof over my head. I, a Salvation Sal, stood on a railroad flat car, singing with the crowd, looking up to the mountains, to the blue sky above, out to the Yukon River on its 2,000 miles to sea. We sang. …

(Letters From Inside: The Notes and Nuggets of Margaret Marsh, Baico, 2006)

I cherish these letters and wonder about the next generation, the one currently self-reliant on technology to communicate, the generation who hasn’t learned the fine art of cursive writing, or the proper format of a REAL letter. This generation’s excitement evolves from a buzz or a bleep, the notification of an incoming text, or a ping that suggests: you have mail. And the overuse of acronyms? Not to mention the many misspelled words from people trying to type messages on keyboards too minuscule for their fingertips.

I continue to write letters: in cursive, slipped into an envelope, addressed and stamped, and dropped into a mailbox (the REAL kind). People jokingly claim that cursive writing will be the secret code of our generation as the new generation loses its ability to write in cursive. But what about writing (cursive on paper) a real letter? How many of us, entrenched as we are in the quick email and texting fad, know and continue to write REAL letters? And mail them via snail mail? If we are writers, as many of us claim to be, shouldn't we be writing REAL letters: to friends, to writing colleagues, and, especially, to seniors confined to residences and lacking the know-how to navigate the world wide web. Our greatest writers throughout history were also great letter writers and their letters were stories in themselves: stories about everyday life.

So, how do you write a REAL letter? Quite simply: think of it as a story, short and sweet, a story about your life.

Let's revive this dying art form! Remember, if you can write a story-worthy letter, then you’re working on your creative writing skills and sharing it with an appreciative audience: the recipient.