The Art of Letter Writing
I miss writing letters. In elementary school, I participated in a letter-writing exchange with a student in Europe. I can't remember the first country... maybe Spain? I also had a pen pal in France. That came a bit later, when I took French classes in junior high and again in high school. Of course, letter-writing was big in school. We didn't have cell phones yet, so passing notes was one of the quickest, most efficient ways to communicate when you're supposed to be quiet (and paying attention) in class. We also had "Slam books," which were spiralbound notebooks where each person in a group could write notes in it for a day, then pass it on to the next person. By the end of the notebook, you had quite the tome of juicy gossip. Typically the subject matters focused on teachers and classes and students that sucked. Or when someone said something funny or mean. Occasionally, there might be something "anonymous" about that person's crush. Of course, s...