Basement Treasures Campaign

Cinderella's humdrum lyrics for Nobody's Fool are stuck in my head this morning, and it's all Sarah's fault.

I was digging around in the basement again last night and reading old letters addressed to me during high school and college. In one of them, Sarah was describing her first few guitar lessons and how she was 'trying' to play Nobody's Fool. In another, she mentions a crush she has on some boy in some band and says, "You really would love him too. He's weird like us." (For existing proof of how weird she still is, see her blog entry for today titled I know we're not the only ones).

Back when Sarah first moved from Ohio to Florida, we made promises to keep in touch through letters and phone calls, and -- to this day -- we've followed through. But even then, at 12, I knew I'd miss the daily conversations we shared. The simple one-liners. The easy going back and forth between two friends with so many shared jokes.

It sounded ridiculous and never came to fruition, but I remember suggesting that in addition to writing standard, full-length letters we should also keep an ongoing conversation in print -- a single letter wherein I would ask a question, send it to her and wait for her response plus a follow up questions on the same piece of paper. It would be a serial letter of sorts that moved back and forth between us as a long-distance conversation in print.

This, of course, was long before e-mail, blogging, text messaging and every other form of online communication.

Today, along with many others, I'm mourning the death of the full-length, hand-written letter. Yet, along with so many fellow bloggers, I treasure this new medium as one that reinvigorates the process of writing about our personal lives in a public space.

But reading these old letters makes me wonder how different it must be for kids these days (I'm only 32, so I find it comical to type that phrase).

Before we headed off to college, Mich and I typed our new, shared address on slips of paper and handed them out to nearly everyone we knew. Friends, family, random acquaintances -- everyone was boldly accosted for letters over the next nine months. Then, during our first week at school, we sent form letters to dozens of friends in a desperate plea for more and more mail.

For our efforts, we received hundreds of multi-paged, hand-written notes addressed to us at 440 Jefferson Hall. We looked forward to each piece of mail as a brief reminder of home, and we treasured the letters from friends away at other universities whose stories of drunken weekends, dorm room life and college stress were the same around the country.

I don't think we would have received the same depth of satisfaction from e-mails or on-screen chats with friends. That would have been too easy. For someone to write a three-to-four page letter, seal it in an envelope and place it in the mail means they have to put some thought and effort into their relationship with you. They have to spend at least an hour thinking of you and what parts of their life you might like to read.

In revisiting these old letters, I've come up with a plan to rekindle old friendships and to pay respect to the dying art of the hand-written letter.

I plan to package up piles of forgotten letters and return them to the original senders. For the writer, I hope, it will be an unexpected form of self-discovery. For me, it may mean a renewed correspondence with an old friend.

Plus, selfishly, it will help me unload some of these basement treasures that I just can't bring myself to burn. I'll call it the Basement Treasures Campaign, and I'll start it this week.

If you have old letters in your basements, attics or closets, feel free to join the campaign. It's completely unorganized and truly self-paced. And (perhaps the best part), there are no boastful ribbons or colorful plastic wrist bands to wear.

Instead, it's a private campaign between you and those people who -- at some point in your life -- felt you were worthy of a stack of a personal, hand-written notes. It may seem frivolous, but to me it's something worth campaigning for.  (Then again, I may be Nobody's Fool.)

Comments

[Sarah]

I'm shocked you found more than one letter from me. I was a terrible pen pal until I got e-mail.

I loved this post and it has me wishing I would have saved all my old letters against the wishes of my Mom and Gabe. If I can find any, I'll send them to you too. I guess I can just use the same return address.

[Kelly]

It is always nice to get a handwritten note. I am lucky to now live close to my parents and I still enjoy getting cards and notes from my mom in the mail (and I see her almost every day). She has always been like that with both my sister and me. On a not so good day, a card or a simple note would wind up in the mailbox from her just reminding us that she was thinking of us. I still get envelopes from her with coupons, although she now throws them on my kitchen counter when she stops by. I guess we just can't break her habit after 12 years from the time that we moved away from her.

I also have a friend who I worked with in NC (he was my surrogate Dad when I lived out there, and a wonderful Grandpa to Megan) who I still exchange letters with. It is comforting to sit down and answer his letters, which I always do handwritten, and fill him in on how our lives are changing since our move to Arkansas.

[Mich]

Oh Alison! I think this is a fantastic idea. I will see what I can find in my basement, too.

[Alison]

Sarah, I have a whole pile, dating back to 1984. I read a few last night and laughed until I was loopy. You always list your three favorite songs. In the one I'm looking at now it's Wild Boys by Duran Duran, I Wanna Rock by Twisted Sister and Feel For You by Chacka Kahn. In another you ask, "How many Duran Duran pictures do you have? I have 100."

Mich, admittedly, yours will be the hardest to part with. Luckily, I haven't broke into that box yet.

Kelly, your mom sounds wonderful. She and my mom would get along well. I received postcards from her nearly every day when I was in college (though it's my dad who does the coupon cutting in that relationship).

[Sarah]

My favorite songs right now are:

1)"Around the Corner" - The Evens

2) "Wine and Roses" - Lars Frederikson and The Bastards

3)"List of Demands (Reparations)" - Saul Williams

4)Laurie Has a Pig on Her Head" - Laurie Berkner