February 25, 1997

Dear Mom:

I got into work early today and instead of starring at the wall or starting my "to do" list, I thought I would start by writing a letter to you to say hi. Letters have a way of saying more than can be said in person, they are more formal, more ‘old style’. In this last month’s Readers Digest a joke struck me as being more true than I wanted to believe. The joke talked about a Cub Scout pack whose den mother had asked the group of little boys if they would like to make some pen-pals in Bosnia. "What is a pen pal?", whispered one boy to another. "It is like a cyber-buddy on the Internet," the boy replied, "but you have to use a pen and paper, and it is a lot slower." I am the first to admit that the Internet, TV, radio, cellular phones and all the other forms of technology that inundate our lives have made the world somehow a better place to live. However, in regarding the society from the viewpoint of a remote uninterested historian, I might comment that we have lost more than we have gained in the rush for the next epoch. One of those instances left behind in the dust of tachyons and processors is the letter.

How many times do we read the works of the great authors and playwrights or admire the work of architects and sculptors only to be further inspired to look into their memoirs and biographies? There we find, especially among the more lyrical figures, copies of letters that they sent their friends or relatives or even congressmen. These snapshots of time are the pictures into the lives of the writers much more so than any of their work or art. Yet today, I am seeing a decrease in the overall letter writing in society. In it’s place a grandchild now emails their grandmother, a buddy in Wisconsin calls his fellow alumnus in Hawaii. All around us technology has taken human beings to a new level of communication. It provides instant gratification of a need for knowledge or information. Even greeting cards have pre-written comments that require us only to sign, date, seal, stamp and send. THEY say that Email replaces the letter? A loud HAHA! With all of that pidgin English, misspellings and horrible grammar, how can that be called a replacement for a well thought out, reviewed, painstakingly reread and corrected letter?

I believe I will still write letters. If only by word-processor with spell checkers and grammar correctors, it is still a letter. Something that says more than the words on the paper, a testament to the thoughts of these days I am living. I hope you do not mind receiving them.

With love,

Rick