Letters ...

Joyce and I were streaming a Netflix comedian last night (Ryan Hamilton--Happy Face, 2017), and he did an amusing bit about letters--personal and business letters we used to write but do so no more. (Most of us.)

It got me thinking about a couple of songs: "Love Letters in the Sand" (Pat Boone, 1957--I was in junior high; link to song) and "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" (also 1957, by Billy Williams; link to song). Both songs, by the way, were composed earlier and have had multiple versions recorded by multiple artists.

And there once were countless other songs about letters ...

And how about Perry Como? Remember, near the end of his show, The Perry Como Show (1948-63), he would do a bit about letters. "Letters--we get letters--we get stacks and stacks of letters. 'Dear Perry, would you be so kind, to fill a request and sing the song I like best?'" And Perry would come out and sing a song that someone had requested. (Link to some video.)

When I was a kid, part of the routine in our English classes each year was to go through some practice with "personal letters" and "business letters"--not that we kids had any business to speak of. I can imagine the sort of thing I would write: Dear Grocer, Would you please stock more orange Popsicles? Thank you. Your friend, Danny Dyer.

I wrote very few letters in boyhood--most were (required) (by my mom): thank-you notes after my birthday and Christmas. In fact, one of my standard "gifts" for Christmas was a pack of thank-you cards. Would you think less of me if I told you that those cards were not among my favorite presents?

When I began teaching "language arts" to 7th graders in the fall of 1966, we used a textbook called Language for Daily Use (see pic).

my actual copy!

Chapter 8 was "Writing Letters." Among the advice:

1. Write naturally, as if you were talking.
2. Write with pen or typewrite, whichever is easier for you.
3. Write about what the other person will want to know.
4. Remember, courtesy demands that your letter be neat and legible.

One other piece of advice (I kid you not): "Don't start by stating that you hate to write letters" (208). That, of course, is exactly what I felt like writing around my birthday and Christmas.

There were sections on Preparation for Mailing that showed diagrams of how you ought to fold and insert the letter in the envelope, how the envelope should look on the outside.

Oddly, on the facing page of this are lines from Wordsworth's "The World Is Too Much With Us." (Link to poem.)

Following are sections on "Social Notes" and "Business Letters."  One of the latter is a complaint about a product the writer ordered: 35 mm slides that are, regrettably, "badly scratched." The writer wants a replacement (224).

And so on.

Until fairly recently I was writing lots of personal letters--four a week in fact. Two to my mom (Wednesday and Sunday), one to my dear friend and colleague Andy Kmetz (Saturday), one to a former high-school friend and teammate who was having severe medical issues (Tuesday).

But--one by one--all three died.

And now it's pretty much all emails and texts. I hardly ever get personal letters in the mail. Or send them.

I wonder: What would Perry Como think of this brave new world of ours?  Instead of "Letters, we get letters," would it be "Email, we get email"?