Pen Pals...the old fashioned way

[loriken214]

Do you have pen pals? My third grade teacher introduced me to writing to a pen pal and I was hooked. I love getting mail in my mail box from friends.

Lori

 

[yssie]

Not the old-fashioned way - the last letters I wrote were my christmas letters


I do adore getting handwritten notes from people though. It's so sweet and - dare I say it, quaint - these days!

 

[yennyfire]

The only hand written notes I do these days are thank you notes (for birthday's etc.) and to my great-aunt Helen, who's 92 and doesn't have a computer. I do like getting/sending hand written notes. It's a dying art...

 

[asscherisme]

Yes, my grandma! She is 92 and an amazing woman. She lives several hundred miles away and I only get to see her every few months or so when I make the trip to her. She is hard of hearing and finds the phone very hard to use because of that. And she does not have a computer. She does however have the most amazing handwriting I have ever seen and lots of time on her hands and writes the most beautiful letters. Not only do I write letters to her, I encourage my kids to and my kids and I all write to her and she answers every letter very quickly. We stay in close touch this way. I often stick photos of the kids, or articles I think she would find interetsing.

I treasure our communication and I know she does too.

 

[asscherisme]

In my school district, the kids get assigned a pen pal from across the country to write to during the year. They get a new one each grade.

 

[packrat]

I had penpals in grade school but we never stayed in contact. When I was a Freshman in High School I got my name in the penpal section of Metal Edge magazine (haven't read it in years and no clue if they even do such a thing anymore!) and I had a TON of penpals after that. 2 I wrote for a long time, and one I was still writing when JD and I got married! We lost contact, he moved a few times, and then one day on myspace a couple years ago, I got an "Is this you??" message and it was from him! He remembered my zip code and found me that way. We emailed often after that but I don't get on myspace anymore and last I checked he hadn't been on for a while either. He was kinda a drifter, riding the boxcars (literally!!) kinda guy, so who knows where he is by now.

I also used to write my 3 Gramma's on a regular basis, until JD and I got married-one of my gramma's lives kitty corner from me and the other 2 were close enough we visited rather than write.

I love to write letters! Looooong babbling about anything/everything letters!

 

[random_thought]

Dh's grandparents always send us a handwritten letter and card around Christmas, Easter, our birthdays, etc. I always take the time to write back and update them on our lives as they do ours. I would write my own grandparents but they have sadly all passed on, so I take full advantage of DH's grandparents still being with us to connect with them Fun fact: before DH and I even started dating, my mother and his grandmother were in an exercise group for years together and were good friends!

 

[gemgirl]

I think it's the coolest thing when grade school kids get assigned a pen pal. When I was around ten years old, our school asked us if we wanted to write to any of the young men from our area who had enlisted in the service. So I did, I volunteered and it was a really nice experience. The young man sent me his sargeant's stripes when he made sargeant. I was grateful that no harm came to him, because as a kid, I don't think I could have handled that. I also wrote to my cousin in California (we were in NY) for many many years, into my middle teenage years. That was fun too. I actually miss regular mail and I do look forward to writing Christmas cards every year. Email is not nearly as personal.

 

[zoebartlett]

I'm a teacher and I've done pen pals with my second graders. We teamed up with a class that is in our district but in the next town over. Our kids loved it, and they loved getting the letters. It was a great way to introduce letter writing too!