Snail Mail

Nothing says love like a hand written letter.  Recall if you can, a time of days long past, and the anticipation of the mailman making his daily rounds through the neighborhood, all in the hope that there just might be a letter with your name on it safely nestled inside the family mailbox!  Of course, as we got older, it was just nice to receive something that wasn't a bill. 

Time moves on, and of course things have changed.  Not only are mailmen called mail carriers, but if we see them at all, it's from afar, driving a jeep that stops every block or so to fill a stack of metal boxes.  I would dare to guess that most kids have no idea who their mail carrier is.  When I was very young, our mailman was named Sam, and he walked around our neighborhood.  When I was a bit older, we moved to a farm.  My sister and her friend would leave a little snack in the mailbox for the mailman on his route, carefully placing it inside one of those large rural mailboxes.

Most of what we find in our mail box these days is considered "junk mail", and barely worth collecting.  We send and receive most of our correspondence through some type of e-delivery.  There's no doubt that the new and improved methods of communication are far more economical and efficient, but it does give one pause.  Have we lost something in the grand quest for progress?