The Minnesota Farm Woman

Somewhere around here I have a box of letters. There are a few that my great-grandmother wrote to the folks back home, filled with news about the relatives and her health. There are eloquently written letters from my father to my mother. There is even a packet of love letters, all written on yellow stationary that I got from HIM during our engagement. They are short but very sweet, and I saved every single one of them. I used to be a good letter writer. Since I moved about a thousand miles from home after we married, I kept in touch with friends and family through letters, and I was happy to get them in return. We didn’t have a lot of money, long-distance telephone rates were expensive, and postage stamps were cheap. Gradually, it became more affordable to call, and I started sending a hand written letter only at Christmas. Most of my friends did the same. Then came email, which was a wonderful way to keep in touch with friends and family at the touch of a keyboard. Long letters were no longer necessary, as brief notes and funny jokes became a weekly or even daily occurrence. I looked forward to checking my email daily, even several times a day. Gradually, despite internet filters, “spam” email would find its way into my inbox. That, along with the same tired old jokes that circulated over and over, made email not such a thrill any more. Along came Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. Now we can chat and send pictures instantly to everyone we know. We can have running conversations with each other by text messages on our phones. Husbands and wives are communicating with each other again, everywhere except at our house. The man who once wrote those sweet letters refuses to text and the only love notes he writes are left on the counter asking me to pick up peanut butter at the grocery store. Most people, including me, don’t bother to send Christmas cards any more, preferring instead to send greetings via social networking. These days, I still check my email every day, but have to weed through the spam and scammers to get to the important stuff. Cruise lines and mortgage companies want my business. Citizens from Libya are telling me I can share in their inheritance if I just give them my bank account number. Strangely enough, I even get information about adult diapers and choosing my own nursing home. Today, long-distance rates are cheap and postage stamps are expensive. I miss getting those good long newsy letters. I miss the anticipation of checking the mailbox every day and of sorting through the mail, saving the letters for last and reading them a second or even a third time. I love technology, but sometimes miss the way things used to be. We don’t save texts and emails. The next generation won’t find an old shoebox filled with love letters and faded photographs that were put away long ago by someone who wondered how the years went by so quickly. Maybe it is time for me to write a letter. It will be long, handwritten, and filled with news. Hopefully, I will even get one in return.