Here is a picture of my asters in bloom a couple years ago and the butterfly who posed so nicely for me.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
Grandma's other collection
My grandma had another collection besides her salt and pepper shakers. She collected and grew cactus plants. She had a lot of pen pals and some of them sent her the plants from their area of the country. This was back in the late 1940's or early 1950's. She convinced me to put my name in a magazine in the pen pal section and I wrote to over 50 pen pals. My mother didn't drive and we lived 5 miles from town so I lived a pretty isolated childhood. The highlight of the day was running out to the mail box after the mailman came to experience my connection with the outside world. I usually received 1-2 letters a day and I always answered them the same day. Now I can't convince myself to write a letter and get it to the mailbox. You, who are reading my blog, are now my outside world. I can easily type on my keyboard and it doesn't hurt the carpel tunnel problem in my wrist. I love the fact I can reach people all over the world by writing one "letter" and by touching the PUBLISH POST button, everyone can read the same "letter". 
Here is a picture of my asters in bloom a couple years ago and the butterfly who posed so nicely for me.
Here is a picture of my asters in bloom a couple years ago and the butterfly who posed so nicely for me.
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7 comments:
This penpal lives in Tucson, AZ where cacti abound! Love your blog.
I remember when I was young I did many postcard exchanges. They started with a chain letter and you sent postcards to so many people on the list. I still have the post cards after 50 years. I'm now trading fabric postcards in several exchanges. Old habits sometimes never die.Jacq
What a great photo of your Grandmother! I agree, this whole blogging thing a great modernization of the pen pal concept.
I remember being so excited about getting mail (and I too had penpals). But you had to wait for it for so long. Aren't we spoiled, or I should say, isn't it wonderful that we have instant contact with each other and can "get mail" every single day. I loved the picture of your grandmother and her collections. What a treasure!
Oh, I miss the regular mail. I had many pen pals as well, and eventually met two of them because they lived fairly close. We are still friends today, over fifty years later! One still writes letters about once a year, but both use email (and one phones now and then), but the letters are the best. All that said, I too would rather write email, partly because disuse makes my handwriting worse than my doctor's. Sigh. Thanks for the reminders of life as it was and the wonderful nostalgia of your photos.
Love that photo of your grandmother with her Cacti, what happened to them after she was gone?
I had a penpal too, & as I lived in the North Island & he lived in the South, we seemed to have quite different lives. I had thought he was a girl at first, his name was Alwyn, & I had never heard that name used for a boy. We wrote for about 7 years, then lost touch.
You Asters are beautiful, & the butterfly is so pretty.
Your Grandmother, it sounds, was an interesting person. And this blogging thing is strangely appealing. It's not quite like writing and receiving letters, as in the example of this comment, the "letters" back are small in comparison to the letters we'd once get. But I agree with you that it is a way to write our "letters" to anyone who will read them. I'm glad that you decided to join the blogging world!
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