Speedy Delivery: The GenX Art of the Handwritten Letter

Kristin Nilsen 0:01

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Carolyn Cochrane 0:46

Hey, everybody, its Carolyn. And yes, I sound a little different in the beginning of today's recording. We had a couple of technical difficulties, but they got straightened out after a few minutes and we decided that you'd rather hear what I had to say. Then throw it all away on the cutting room floor. Thanks for your understanding. And please enjoy the show.

Michelle Newman 1:07

I'll tell you about the carnival later. Better go because Nick is hungry like the wolf. Oh, my God. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year and feed the world. Roxanne Hello. Come on get

Kristin Nilsen 1:31

up will make you welcome to the pop culture Preservation Society. The podcast for people born in the big wheel generation who know where to put the stamp on an envelope. We believe our Gen

Michelle Newman 1:45

X childhoods gave us unforgettable songs, stories, characters and images. And if we don't talk about them, they'll disappear like Marshall will and Holly on a routine expedition.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:55

And today we'll be saving that mode of communication that kept us connected to friends, family and cute boys. The handwritten letter. I'm Carolyn,

Michelle Newman 2:05

I'm Kristen. And I'm Michelle and we are your pop culture preservationists.

Carolyn Cochrane 2:19

Is Gen X the last generation to consistently put pen or pencil to paper and communicate our thoughts to friends and family through letters and notes? Will any generation after us be able to look back at a box of letter keepsakes and get written snapshots of who they were and what their worlds were like? Will they have memories of the thrill of running to the mailbox and finding an envelope hand addressed to them from a pen pal overseas, or your best friend who had moved away, or the guy who would eventually become your husband? My heart hurts just a little as I realize we are most likely the last generation to have these experiences. And so in today's episode, we're going to share what made writing and receiving those letters and notes so special and so meaningful. We asked you our listeners to send us your stories and memories about letters and send them you did this might have been the most responses we have ever received from a crowdsourcing request. It's a topic many of us have strong feelings about. And I have wanted to do this episode for a long time. Because letter writing is near and dear to my heart, as you'll hear throughout the episode, and I am so glad we are chatting about today.

Kristin Nilsen 3:31

It's interesting. I am so surprised by the response. I thought this was a worthy topic. I thought it might be one that flew under the radar. I was wrong. I was really, really wrong. And I think to your point, Carolyn, today's kids have been robbed once again, because there was no bigger thrill than going to the mailbox and seeing an envelope that was for you getting mail was something that was exciting. Mail is not exciting to our kids. They hardly know what to do with it. Well,

Carolyn Cochrane 4:04

it's not exciting to me anymore. Like you know, going in the mailbox used to be oh my gosh, did the mail come yet right. And now it's like maybe two days before my Andy, have you gotten the mail at all?

Kristin Nilsen 4:12

I don't want it.

Carolyn Cochrane 4:14

You don't have that anticipation of there could be this special letter in there that I'm waiting for because I wrote to my best friend and I'm hoping she wrote me back. Yeah.

Michelle Newman 4:23

I don't have anything to do with my stickers anymore. Yeah, I mean, you guys, I I wrote letters constantly. Probably from the time I could write because living away from family and my dad in particular. It was a lot of money to call to catch up. And this is how we all stayed connected. Yeah, right. There's

Kristin Nilsen 4:42

a forever quality to letters that we don't have with anything digital. They're there. These are things that people kept. We're not going to keep texts. We're not going to keep emails, you might have emails buried in your 1000s and 1000s of emails that you forgot to delete to Delete. But that's not something that you can carry with you. And I have I think our kids. So Liam is 21 years old. No, he's not going to write letters to anybody that is lost, it is gone. But when he was a child, I think he had the last whisper of it. And I have something that I will keep forever. And even though he is not Gen X, I have little letters that he dictated to his preschool teacher, teacher, Tina, in the Yellow Room. Oh, and would you like to hear one of the last clever letter writing ever? Yes. Dear Mama, I like you. And I love the stories you read. And I like the things you do. And kiss me and I love you. And I still love you. Thank you for coming home. And I love you too much. And I will eat you all up

Michelle Newman 5:49

to this further frame shop and get that that's making my heart. Yes,

Carolyn Cochrane 5:54

that is oh my gosh, just so many of those lines like thank you for coming home. That's kind of where are you?

Michelle Newman 6:03

Oh, that was that time Christian. You guys, it's so true. Christian. You just touched on this. And it made me think, why is it that the three of us and listeners so many of you sent us photos of the boxes, the shoe boxes, the drawers of letters, we kept them? We're going to talk in a little bit about thank God we did because they're time capsules. Our kids don't have that. It's tangible. We talk about this a lot. And the podcast is that we've lost a lot of the tangible things, right, the tactile, you know, things we can touch and feel. And I would say maybe more than any of the things we've talked about the magazines we wish we still had or whatever. It's the letters that are the most important, and we saved them. And we didn't realize at the time we didn't I don't think I don't remember making a conscious choice of I'm going to save these. So one day when I'm 54. I will look back, we saved them just simply because they were that important. That's right,

Kristin Nilsen 7:03

right. I didn't think that this was be this would be archival, by no means right. And I was so grateful this week for the opportunity to dig through my veins, and find all of these letters, the things I found. It was like watching a documentary of my life. And in going through my letters, I learned a lot about myself as a kid who I was, I don't have very many that I wrote, it's mostly letters that people wrote to me. And in these letters, people were so free with their feelings. These were confessional. They revealed our internal lives, we told each other how we felt about each other in ways that would never happen in a text probably wouldn't even happen in person. I learned I was valued. And people were very specific about what they liked about me. And I was so proud of little Kristen. She was a really good friend. She was a good listener. People multiple times talked about what a good listener I was. And I was like, Oh, you're nice.

Carolyn Cochrane 7:58

Go knew at that point, how much that was going to mean to you. That's 40 some odd years later. I mean, that's just what's so powerful is the timelessness of these pieces of paper with hand writing on them from somebody that we cared about so deeply. Yeah.

Michelle Newman 8:15

Right. And you said, both of you have said already? Something about the confessions that you know, we pour it into the letters and then Kristen, you're talking about, you don't have many that you wrote, I unfortunately don't have, I might have two or three that I wrote. And I've asked these friends who I have kept all their letters, please tell me do you have my letters? No, they don't. But we can talk about letter writing. Also, you know, we can talk about staying connected. But it's also it was such a form of therapy. And thank God, I didn't send this one letter that I wrote that I still have you guys. I wrote a letter to my friend Lisa, and you'll hear me talk about her in a minute, the day after my dad died. And I was probably 22 I'm not going to remember now. Exactly. And I didn't send it for a reason. I don't know why. But I'm kind of glad I didn't because I have that now and the thoughts and the feelings I can read the day after my dad died. And and so what did I do? The day after my dad died, right? I'm having all these feelings. I picked up a pen. Got out my little letter stationery, and I wrote to the person who I knew would understand probably the most. But at the end of the day, what did I do? I wrote a letter. Yeah, yes, that was the first thing that I thought to do is write a letter to my friend Lisa. And it's a really it's a really emotional letter for me to read. It's something I really am glad I have there.

Kristin Nilsen 9:45

For that reason, having something that that you wrote on paper is so revealing about what happened in your life and what you were like and what you were thinking and feeling and I have a stack of letters from one friend in Junior High in particular, that I found just Recently, and because of that, because of how important it is to see who you were, I was like, I need to track her down. And I need to send her these. And so I did. I mean, it was probably 50 letters, 25 letters. It was hard, but I found her. And she said, Yes, send them I made photocopies of all of them because I wasn't letting them go. So I made photocopies and kept them and I sent her the originals. I never heard from her. Maybe it was too much. Maybe it was was this revealing a time that was difficult for her even though she was writing to me about difficult things. It was coming at a time of turmoil. And I thought maybe does it remind her of this time of turmoil, and maybe she doesn't want to see, maybe she doesn't want to be reminded of this time. So I don't know, I'm gonna give her the benefit of the doubt on that one. And

Carolyn Cochrane 10:43

you still might hear from her, it might be one of those things where she wants to write you back. And it's so much she wants to say I mean, that's what I think happens today for a lot of us is we have any intention. But then we go through all the thoughts of oh, I have to have the paper and I have to have the time. And I have so much I want to say because this was such a great thing this person did. And time, we seem to think we don't have enough time. And if anything, by the end of this episode, I hope we realize that we have enough time and it is time well spent, that will have ripple effects, much beyond what you can imagine. It's not just oh, I'm going to send this letter and it's going to go to the person I mean, that person is going to then have it as we've talked about, you're going to reread it at times, share it with other people, it's

Kristin Nilsen 11:31

worth it is worth it. To emphasize your point. I think the time has been devalued. People First of all are busy, and they've devalued this art this act and so then they say they can't find the time. This week, I received a letter from a friend. Just this week. Oh my before recording this episode from a friend. Thank you Paola. I just need to say out loud. She only lives a couple of miles away from me. But I don't see her that often. And in this letter, it's very newsy. She's filling me in on what's happening in her house. She's telling me about the successes of her children. But then she's also getting vulnerable. And she's telling me about the struggles of of what's going on in her house. When I was done reading this letter, I felt closer to her in a way that I wouldn't even if we were sitting side by side and her telling me those things. If we were getting caught up on the phone, I would not feel as close to her as I did after reading this handwritten letter from her right.

Michelle Newman 12:28

I know that's so that's so important. It is.

Carolyn Cochrane 12:32

And I think there's probably some science behind it. But it's easier to be vulnerable sometimes in that medium handwriting a letter because you don't have to anticipate this direct response. Like let's say you and I are sitting over coffee and I say something, oh, this is happening at home and it's just bothering me. And then you immediately feel like you have to respond. And then it's different then this is uninterrupted thought which goodness knows I need because I forget half the time when I'm going to say if somebody Energex. So I think it's therapeutic on so many levels for the person that's writing it to the person that's reading it. You get such a bang for your buck you guys with hand writing letters. Also,

Kristin Nilsen 13:17

have you ever had something that you can't say out loud? Yes, thing that was so worrisome to you. bothersome to you something that scared you. And you can't say the words. Yes, you can. But you can write it down.

Carolyn Cochrane 13:30

You know, yeah, you can share things in a letter that would have been really, really hard to say if at all. For me, one of the most fun aspects of writing a letter is the stuff the accessories for sure. The stationery, the stickers, the pens, even stamps. Speaking of stamps, you know, our kids will never know what a book of stamps is. Because now we have those wonderful sticker stamps like you they don't have to lick a stamp anymore. It's just or

Kristin Nilsen 13:58

when it was on a spiral. Yeah,

Michelle Newman 13:59

yes. Everybody right now is going

Carolyn Cochrane 14:06

right back, right. That's exactly right. Well, there was such fun stationery and stuff when we were young. I don't know if you guys remember any of it. But I was really Husker dude, when some of our listeners shared some of their stationary sticker stories. For instance, our friend Jennifer asked if we remembered inkblot stickers, okay. These were from Hallmark, and they were these little kind of cranky looking monsters. And you would send them on maybe the outside of the envelope or the inside on the letter. And they were kind of shame based. I've got to say these stickers was

Michelle Newman 14:41

Hello 97.

Carolyn Cochrane 14:44

Because they would say you wouldn't be sending this to maybe someone who hadn't written you back recently, or you're waiting for a letter from them. And so there were little quips like you're going to write or should I sell my mailbox? Or you must have postal phobia Yeah God that that the fear of writing

Michelle Newman 15:02

oh my god wait what are these calls

Carolyn Cochrane 15:03

I don't remember these are called inkblot stare stickers. And if you looked at them I think you would remember you might not remember that they were called that but it's this kind of like hairy weird looking monster guy kind of yelling like you imagined do you think you're gonna write or should I just sell my mailbox like you jerk but they're kind of cute and fun. I'm gonna say you guys if you go on eBay and look up some of this stationery and note cards and things that we had back in the 70s Gosh, they go for a lot of money do any of that stuff like those inkblot stickers you're gonna get to make a pretty penny here's another one that I was who screwed with you guys our friend marble and on Instagram reminded me of paper by the pound Do you guys remember paper by myself those acrylic kind of stand with the color paper and then you can

Kristin Nilsen 15:59

color coordinate you don't like pink paper? Orange envelope yes

Carolyn Cochrane 16:04

and marble and actually still has some and she sent us a photo of her collection of paper by the pound so we can share that with our listeners in the Weekly Reader or on social media. But that was one of those Yeah, whatever sound I cannot make but you guys did so well with what

Michelle Newman 16:22

about this one? Do you guys remember these one piece the one I have happens to be Suzy Zoo. It had a sticker and then you just unfold the whole thing

Kristin Nilsen 16:30

the folds into an envelope.

Carolyn Cochrane 16:33

So it's kind of like a postcard and the letter at the same time. And it came with

Kristin Nilsen 16:37

stickers that you can use it with. Yes. Speaking

Michelle Newman 16:39

of stickers. Oh my gosh. Just the Mrs. Grossman's I wanted to show you guys some. Do you remember all the little bears and then you could put the ice? Build the stuff? Yes. And then just decorating with all the different things right. The Mrs. GROSSMAN was a big deal. And we know that we know that everybody listening, loved Mrs. Grossman's as well because again, when we post Mrs. Grossman's on social media, people go crazy. Go crazy.

Kristin Nilsen 17:05

I think you guys found this too when you went through your letters from this age. So you're a preteen a teenager, the letters almost 100% of the time mentioned voice makes me realize why I write about crushes. Because as much as people want to ignore the fact or pretend that this is not something that we should be focused on. The truth is, it was where we were living. We were living in this world of crushes our hearts were bursting all the time for the people that we were falling in love with because our letters are full of it. Absolutely chock full of it. Oh,

Carolyn Cochrane 17:39

they not only did we decorate the outside of the envelopes, I just remember cutting out so much stuff and putting it in like maybe a Ziggy cartoon from like the comics on Sunday and putting that in or a photo of you know, maybe it was my wallet school photo to a friend who had moved away or a magazine article that clippings.

Kristin Nilsen 18:00

I need to piggyback on your newspaper clippings Carolyn, because I have some mail that I got that actually wasn't a handwritten letter it was they were all clippings. And these are from my friend Colleen. And I have one thing where she says, and she but she comments on all of it. She writes on all of them. The first thing that she has is a clipping from an advertisement for a production of Oliver that will be starring Davy Jones. And it's got a picture of Davy Jones. And then she writes on it, Kristen Davey doesn't look so high. Then there's an article about a book called The One hour orgasm. And then there's our one hour orgasm did

Michelle Newman 18:39

she comment and then we would all be dead.

Kristin Nilsen 18:44

And then she's a clipping of an article about a prisoner who escaped from prison. And he escaped onto the roof and he was surrounded by police at the bottom. But he refused to come down until all the people could name all six of the Brady kids. Is this true? This is true from the newspaper and she's cutting it out and she's sending to me. And then I have no idea why. And I asked her about it just yesterday. Why did you send me this brochure from Miami? Hi, Ally.

Michelle Newman 19:17

Oh my god, Kristen. But what this is saying to me is that the letters and taking the time to do that, or Carolyn to cut out a Ziggy cartoon or my friend, you know, Kristen and Lisa, who covered it all with stickers and wrote little captions. This is time this is thoughtful. This is I'm thinking of you. This is your worth my time. Right? Absolutely.

Kristin Nilsen 19:39

And that and I still learned about myself from her little note or the things that she was sending me because it showed me that this person that I am today a pop culture preservationist. She was already sending me things about the Brady Bunch and Davy Jones and organisms. We were connecting Oh, she we were already connecting about our childhood pop culture.

Carolyn Cochrane 20:04

Thank you, Colleen. Yeah.

Michelle Newman 20:06

And later, later, when we start sharing listeners about how these are time capsules, it was very telling to me what my friends knew what interests me and the type of people I surrounded myself with that's really liked this type of stuff. That's right.

Kristin Nilsen 20:19

Yeah. You know what else was super fun for me when I was going through all of these letters? Were the greetings how we addressed each other. It cracked me up. We rarely used our given names. Almost never. There were code names. There were acronyms that I have absolutely no memory of. I don't know what they mean. There were expletives, there were derogatory terms that I will never say today. Fw HB, one person called me stin. What says, Rainbow, there was a feminized version of a horribly naughty word that I can't say out loud. And you'll love this one. Somebody called me, Chris Dibben. And I remember, I got Husker dude, because I was like, oh my god, it's Chevin oven. And send me a letter to chrimbus Debian. And we would talk about Aw, and this is in high school. This is not when we were little, it stuck her studio. And we would go to practice after school and talk I'd be dubby okay, you're

Michelle Newman 21:17

gonna need to stop because you're gonna start triggering Carolyn.

Carolyn Cochrane 21:22

Long as the whole letter wasn't. And

Kristin Nilsen 21:24

it was not it was just the greeting. It was the greeting in the sign off dear Christmas didn't love Shabbat oven letters

Carolyn Cochrane 21:29

were such a part of our identity. I mean, we started doing it so early. I don't know about you guys. But I think my first foray into letter writing were those mother mandated thank you notes that I had to write to grandparents and family that was out of town. But then also, grandmother's both of my grandmother's were out of town. And so my mom had me write letters to them with just kind of like what was happening in my day, a way to like practice my print handwriting. And I actually found a letter from my grandmother, kind of answering all the questions that I must have asked her like, you know, what are you reading right now. And she would tell me, and you know, what she did that day, she went to the laundromat. And so those letters that we wrote to friends and family, for some of our listeners, those letters were so important, those relationships continued far beyond when they were young kids into high school into college. And after my

Kristin Nilsen 22:24

grandma wrote to us religiously, once a week, my grandparents were also far away. Like clockwork, we would get one letter from my grandma, letter writing was her method of staying close to her family, because long distance was expensive. So we got one letter a week, and we got one five minute phone call on Saturdays. And in every letter that she sent, she would put in $1 for each member of the family. And we call them Grammy dollars. So you'd be like, I don't have lunch money, you'd go looking for Grammys envelope, like wherever. I need lunch money. That's

Michelle Newman 22:57

so cute. I can picture it almost like that, like mad, like Monopoly money, like Grammy dollar, but like in the middle instead of George. That's really cute. Well, my aunt, for me, it was my aunt, my aunt was 13 years older than my mom. And since my grandmother died when I was a baby, I always sort of just felt like my aunt fulfilled that role for me. And I was super close with her, you guys. I adored her. And she lived in Texas. And when we moved away, I was around five. And it was heartbreaking for me like and even when my aunt would come visit us when we lived far away. I would sob and cry so hard that I would like convulse. My aunt wrote me so many letters. And I was thinking about it. And it wasn't the content of her letters that was meaningful, as much as it was her handwriting, because my aunt had gorgeous cursive that was super identifiable to her. And seeing pages of that script to me was like, it was like an it was an extension of her. It was tangible, and I could hold on to it. So it was so identifiable. And so those those letters to me were truly pieces of her. When I see how the her ends, and everything. I see them on birthday cards or whatever, and I keep those it's so meaningful. And it's the handwriting even our friends like looking at my friends letters. I'm like, I remember how Lisa wrote and Lisa, my friend Lisa was funny every letter she would try a different handwriting. Sometimes it'd be. Sometimes it'd be in cursive thing. Sometimes it'd be Yeah, because this is like eighth ninth grade, you know, so

Kristin Nilsen 24:30

did you try and copy NiNis handwriting because I also had my aunt who had very distinctive handwriting and she would write to me, and then the next letter I would write, I would try to call

Michelle Newman 24:39

her That's so cute. I don't remember doing that. But I just her ends are beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, that

Carolyn Cochrane 24:46

handwriting and especially when you can recognize it and you don't even have to read the letter or whatever the words are just to see that handwriting. It's it's such a feeling of comfort and just takes you right back and you know immediately who the person is and for me, you realize they touched that piece of paper that you're holding like it was in their possession. Their DNA is on it lets you know that it's like that much, right of a part of who they were is now something that you have. And again, technology is not going to do that for us people. Oh, it's

Michelle Newman 25:20

gonna make me cry.

Kristin Nilsen 25:21

There is a part in worldwide crush, where she's writing a fan letter to Rory Calhoun, and in naively thinking that he might write back and there's a moment where she thinks, Oh, my God, he's going to lick the envelope. And then she will have his DNA. Yes, you will have his spit in her possession, exactly what I would have. It's

Michelle Newman 25:42

why I like to buy autographed copies of books from people like Andrew McCarthy. Every book he's written, I own an autographed copy. I look at that, and I hold it and I just, it almost takes my breath away, because I think that he held

Kristin Nilsen 25:58

his hand touched his skin cells, I would be on that. Yeah, I have a cousin that lived very far away from me, in a different region of the country, and I got lots of great letters from her that I went through this week. And because she lived in a different region of the country, it was like a different culture. And her letters were like missives from a foreign land, she went to boarding school. Her slang was completely different. Even the music she listened to is different. So getting a letter from her was so exciting. Even if she thought she was just writing the humdrum minutia of her life. Her minutia was so different from mine. But more importantly, these letters are hilarious. Guys, we were so pubescent. It's so funny. Can I read you one? Oh, yes.

Michelle Newman 26:44

Okay,

Kristin Nilsen 26:45

I'm changing all the names in my letters. Except one. You'll know which which name I didn't change. It'll be quite obvious, but I couldn't change it. There was no way. So this is from June 1983. Dear Kristen, are you still alive? Right now? It's 1040. And I'm staying up to watch Twilight Zone. Anyways, so Do you still like journey? I do. Their concert was so great. Bryan Adams open for them. He was really good and gorgeous. How's your love life? Mine's going pretty well. I've been going out with Rick for two months. Whoa. That's so nice and cute, gorgeous, whatever. A couple of weeks ago, though. There was a party and Rick couldn't go. So I figured what the hell? I'll go for it with Arthur McGonigal. Well, by the end of the party we were making out. Well, some jerks from my class that they were going to tell Rick about Arthur, I got pissed. Oh, well, I still really like Rick and this pen is running out of ink. You know what, now that I think about it. You must think I'm some sort of sleazy, but actually, I'm not. I'm just sort of fickle. Oh my god, they're playing Pink Floyd on the radio. How cool. I love Pink Floyd, this pen is dying. There. This is better love. Fill in the blank. And then she writes web, which it took me a long time to figure out what WB is. That's right.

Michelle Newman 28:04

This is so funny because this is so similar to a lot of letters I want to talk about and a little bit but the confessional and I think you mentioned it already before it Carolyn. This was such a safe space letters were such a space safe space for those of us who lived far away from a cousin or a friend. And they could just port I have many letters who from people I will not name now. That's a good idea. Now adopt that? Saying yes, we're talking 10th grade went to a party kissed this person. Oops. But I'm dating this person. This person found out now they're met and or they hope this person doesn't find out and I'm like, wow, I had moved away. I was the safe you were sigh I was Dear Abby. Basically I was the confessional. Yeah. And we even have listeners who have told us about that these letters are confessionals. Yeah. Well, I

Carolyn Cochrane 28:53

love the story that our listener Julie shared. She also wrote letters to a cousin that didn't live close by her cousin Renee. And when they were kids, they started when they were kids, and they wrote all the way through their teen years. And Julie shared that their mothers who were sisters always wanted to read the letters when they came just to kind of see you know what? They know how their daughter was, or their niece was going through or what she was doing. And that was fine. Julie said when they were kids, but then you know when they got to be teenagers preteens exactly what we're saying. They wanted to share a lot more with each other that they never wanted their mothers to see. So they created this great workaround. They wrote two letters, and so one would share with the letter from here's the letter from Julie. And then there was the secret letter that was just between the two cuts.

Michelle Newman 29:44

I love this so much because the secret letter would be so fun to write. Well, I'm just doing my needlepoint. I just finished reading my Bible verses and

Carolyn Cochrane 29:56

do your homework. Sit

Michelle Newman 29:57

ups before bed. Oh, water. Yes, that was a party last night, they had Diet Coke.

Carolyn Cochrane 30:09

Oh gosh. And then one other story I wanted to share that actually got me a little emotional. It comes from another follower named Julie. She shared that she wrote to her grandparents regularly from when she was a kid all the way through college. And one day in her 20s, she received a package from a grandfather and it contained all the letters that she had ever written to her grandparents. And at the time, she said she was kind of offended that her grandfather didn't think these were important enough to keep or that he didn't want them. And so she put them in a drawer and just kind of forgot about them. Until we asked for people to share their letters and stories with us. So she decided to go and look for those letters. And here's what she has to say,

Speaker 1 30:49

I used to write to my grandparents. And more than just the thank you notes, I would write them newsy little letters, starting in about sixth grade and all the way through college. And one year when my I was probably close to getting married is probably in my late 20s. My grandfather gave me all my letters back. And at the time I was I was almost kind of a little bit offended by that. I don't know why I thought well, doesn't he want them anymore? Don't they mean anything to them. So I just threw them in a drawer and never really thought about them again, until I saw Carolyn's Instagram asking about letters. And so I decided to pull them out. Well, I have had the best afternoon reliving my high school and college and even early career years reading these letters and fights with my sisters in the time my mom dumped me on a bus to go to O'Hare to visit the pen pal friend. And it's just been amazing to relive all this. So I really do appreciate it. And it's and maybe someday my kids will read this these letters, too. But it's just been really fun to, to read them and kind of relive High School. Talk to you soon. This is Julie Bye, bye. See,

Kristin Nilsen 31:56

that's exactly what we were talking about. He knew he knew that she would want these letters to see who she was at this very important time of her life.

Michelle Newman 32:05

It's so emotional. It is so emotional.

Carolyn Cochrane 32:08

And again, I don't know serendipitous to that. It's our calling for stories from our listeners that prompted her to go look for this. These letters. I mean, that makes me feel kind of good that we were partly responsible for this moment that she had.

Kristin Nilsen 32:24

And isn't that interesting that it took her it took our call for letters for her to go and find those letters. And she went all that time with these letters in the drawer and not understanding how valuable they were right. So if you guys remember, writing letters was something that we learned how to do in school, we learned how to format a letter where to put the date what kind of salutation to use, there was a significant amount of the school they devoted to learning how to communicate via letters, which of course is gone. And this was often something that you did around the holidays, Christmas Valentine's Day, Mother's Day, you'd make a card and you would write a note inside using the techniques that they taught us in school. I think my very first letter that I wrote by myself without any help was to my mom, I'm guessing it was probably Mother's Day. And it was written in first grade and Mrs. Morgan's class. And it's memorable because I signed it your angel Kristen, which was something that she often called me, but I spelled Angel wrong. So I said angle. And still 50 years later, my mom will call me her little angle.

Michelle Newman 33:36

Oh my goodness, I

Kristin Nilsen 33:39

love that little angle. Well, I

Carolyn Cochrane 33:43

found a letter that I wrote to my mother to when it had to be first grade, or second grade. I don't know. But it's on that really wide wide ruled paper. And like school paper. Oh, definitely school paper. And it said Dear Mom, our class had to write a letter. I've got good handwriting. The teacher did not yell at me. Love Carolyn.

Michelle Newman 34:08

So I guess I've been getting. I feel like there's there's two things that could have been happening that day in class. One, the teacher was yelling at everybody who was not using their best handwriting. And Carolyn was like, You know what, Mom? I used good handwriting and I didn't get yelled at. Or Carolyn often got yelled at. Yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 34:27

I think that was a talker. Carol. I was I was a talker. So I think at that time in my life, I had been getting some letters sent home with me by the teacher. Yeah, that I talked a lot. So I think this was my chance to say and today mom. Yeah, I haven't done yet.

Kristin Nilsen 34:44

I remember practicing again, because penmanship was something we did in school that they don't do anymore. And I remember being at a school meeting when Liam was like in fourth, fifth grade. And there were some parents that were questioning this like why is it that our kids aren't being taught curse? said Why aren't you helping them with their penmanship? And one of the teachers, a male teacher, said, well, let's be honest. Does anyone ever use cursive anymore? And all the women in the audience raise their hand? And he just I don't know. But now I had to in worldwide crush, there are diary entries that she makes. And the designer made those diary entries in cursive. And I had to get in contact with the designer and say, you can't use cursive kids can't read cursive Oh, and that broke my heart and it broke her heart to broke her heart. She's like, What are you even saying? So school is also the place where a lot of us got our first pen pals. This might have been a classroom project spearheaded by your teacher, because it's a great way to practice that penmanship in a way that was super exciting. And as we'll find out, for some people, that pen pal experience could be life changing. For me writing to a pen pal was a little weird, because you were writing to a stranger in hopes of making a friend. And so it was sort of like the letter writing process in reverse. And this comment from Instagram resonated with me, Jennifer says, I didn't know what topics to write about in my letters. And being an elementary school. I didn't have much exciting news to share. So I would do things like count out the change in my piggy bank, and then right, I have $3.24. How much money do you? She says 40 years later, I'm still embarrassed about that.

Michelle Newman 36:27

I think it's darling.

Kristin Nilsen 36:30

That's great. How much money do you have it but for some people, this pen pal experience totally worked. And they kept those pen pals for years. Lots of people in our comments on Instagram reminded us about the call for pen pals on the Big Blue Marble, which was a half hour children's television program that aired on PBS from 1974 to 1983. And the show featured stories about children around the world, aka the big blue marble. And it had a pen pal club that encouraged this cross cultural coming together that was sort of their deal writing to people in other parts of the world. So this is part of what made pen pals such an exciting idea. You got to hear from people from another country. And starting in the second season, the big blue marble ran a full commercial length promo saying write to this address, and we will match you up with a pen pal.

Speaker 2 37:21

Dear pen pal. Welcome be more fun than getting to know other kids in other parts of the world. This is what happens when you decide to become a pen pal. Let me tell you about. All you have to do is send your name, address, zip code and age. Tell us if you're a boy or girl what your interests are, and mail it to do your pen pal, box 405 for Santa Barbara, California, zip code 93103. We'll do the rest. You'll send you the names and addresses of boys and girls and other countries that you can write to. They've said they want to write to you. Once again, send your name, address, zip code and age and mail to do your pen pal, box 405 for Santa Barbara, California. Zip code 93103. Making friends is fun. And someday you may meet your pen pal in another country. Pen Pal letters can bring us all closer together. But be patient. It takes a long time for letters to go all around this big blue marble.

Kristin Nilsen 38:25

And this worked, we heard from tons of people who got their pen pals. Mark said he wrote to multiple pen pals from all over the world by writing to the Big Blue Marble. And he said I had one from Denmark, one from Ireland and one from New Jersey.

Carolyn Cochrane 38:42

Another world culture I can say that because I lived there. So

Kristin Nilsen 38:47

Marva LAN also had multiple pen pals from all over the world, including one from England, whose address was literally Sherwood Forest. Oh my gosh. Great. And she would give Marvel and a heads up about the new wave bands that hadn't hit the US. Yeah, I would be all over that. And she remembered the opening of one of this. One of the letters from this girl was the Valentine's disco was crap. But here's a pen pal story. That's really sad. This is from Carla. Oh, no. And she says big blue marble was my hookup. Sad story though. The pen pal I got lived in Haiti. And by her third letter, she asked her family to come live with us in Pennsylvania. And could we get jobs for her parents? I had no idea what to reply. My mom took charge and explained that we already had six people living in a tiny row home in the in the coal region. So the answer was no. And she never wrote back.

Michelle Newman 39:46

That's a tough position to be in when your head like marble. I just wanted like someone from Sherwood Forest.

Kristin Nilsen 39:54

Right? Oh, and and your heart would just break for that person and knowing that you had absolutely nothing that you could do. Due to help,

Michelle Newman 40:00

I'm telling you though she's never forgotten it and it probably as a child, you know, it did open her eyes to what people are going through in other parts of the world. Yes,

Kristin Nilsen 40:10

a very good point. That could be part of what the cross cultural experience is. It's not all happiness. There's stuff going on and other parts of the world that didn't really understand because we had a pretty good in comparison. I know. Life lessons, right? Privilege. Yeah. So here's a place but a lot of people got pen pals that I was kind of clueless about. So have you seen Brian said, I used to read this hockey magazine that had a section of pen pals. This is a source I did not know about magazines. So Nicki said she got her pen pal from Teen Magazine. She taped two quarters to a form and then she wrote in her address and birthday and then sent it to teen and they sent you a person to write to who was your supposedly Zodiac match. Oh, and her Zodiac match are still in touch today on Facebook. 40 years later,

Carolyn Cochrane 41:00

I love those stories.

Kristin Nilsen 41:03

Zodiac and I would have been so much into that Pisces, everybody Pisces, so but this one blew my mind. I did not remember this. Apparently another common place that people could find pen pals was in the pages of Tiger Beat magazine. Tiger Beat actually published a list of names and addresses of people who wanted to be pen pals magazine. Yes, people's people's addresses and you could mention in your listing what your interests were. So you could match yourself up with someone who had the same crushes you. So Tonya commented on Instagram that she is still in touch with the Tiger Beat pen pal that she was matched with because they both like Michael Damien. That's where Michael thing that's just, that's the best. And then T L squire says this is from Instagram. I sent my name and address to star hits magazine. And all I said was I love John Taylor. The issue came out and I went on vacation with my dad came home to my mom's a week later and she said, What did you do? I had two grocery bags full of letters. I think I got over 500 She couldn't of course read all of those letters. But she did end up corresponding with about 10 of those people regularly all because they love John Taylor. I love my gosh, isn't that amazing? So

Michelle Newman 42:21

amazing. I cannot believe

Kristin Nilsen 42:23

I never did this to correspond with someone who was also ripping the Beegees posters out of Tiger Beat and putting them on their walls like me. I can't believe I missed out on this opportunity. Right?

Carolyn Cochrane 42:34

I mean, I don't recall that either. And again, to especially to correspond with someone who loved Jimmy McNichol, which I think that was a smaller, I wasn't gonna get 500 letters and two bags full of people. But But yeah, to have that just talk about with somebody who got it. Yeah, would be

Speaker 3 42:54

immediately Yes, it's me words. Take your heart and soundly you words, words are rather to take your heart away.

Carolyn Cochrane 43:25

Without technology, the only way we really had to keep in touch with friends when we weren't in close proximity was either through letters or phone calls, which we've already said, so expensive. So really, writing letters was the best way to stay in touch. So whether you were separated from friends during the summer, or maybe someone had moved, handwritten letters are really the things that kept us up to date on all the scoop on the boys on everyday life on people's thoughts and hopes and dreams. And I remember, summer was a big time for me to write letters to friends because I had a lot of friends who went to their grandparents, their parents worked. And so it was like, go to Florida and stay with your grandparents for the summer. I had one friend who would go to Florida every summer and I've got a stack of her letters. I'm not gonna read them all. But one, I've got to tell you, she was so clever. It starts with this. She said, I know we just wrote you. But I'm and I mailed that letter yesterday. But the most exciting thing in the world happened yesterday night. When this happened. My heart was beating so fast. It must have broken a record. And then she goes on to detail the story. She doesn't tell me what the exciting thing is until like the very last line of this Ricki she's talks about how she's at River Country. And if you know River Country, it's at Disney World. It was one of the water parks. Yeah. And she was going down the slides and everything. And as she was passing this one person, she thought I think I know that person. But she kept going. She went down the slide and this person was going down the slide next door. Kelly got to the bottom and her bathing suit fell off. Oh Oh, oh my god, she was traumatized because this person is here. Meanwhile, I don't know who this person is. Yeah, like leaving me until this very Yes. And she said, she fell on him by accident. Oh my gosh, what dramatizing was this? So I said I'm sorry. And he said, That's okay. And then she goes on honestly till two more pages until I get to my family. I won't say the real name because obviously, um, she would be embarrassed. But she said, he came up to me and said, Hi, I think I know you. I think you go to my school. And he said, See, I even had the shorts on and he showed me his bishop used to shorts. And he said, Are you just here with your family? And I said, Yes, are you? And he said, Yes, I'm staying at the base. I'm staying at the campground. Then he said, Oh, I better go find my family believe without me. And I said, Okay. And then he said, See you later and I said, bye. wasn't that exciting? And I love dialogue. I know Do you know who it was and then she in all caps exclamation exclamation, tells me the name friends always. And then Piazza Quito. Although I did, Quito where the speedo father Speedo? And she said after he said, I know you she she had to say, Yeah, I thought that was you. But I just wasn't sure. Of course. Yeah. And then I got the classic. Pss. Sorry. So sloppy. You guys are so many letters. We were busy. psychologizing When we were little girls. Yep. I mean, that's just Yes. And she also wanted me to know, God's my witness, swear to God, that all of this is true.

Michelle Newman 46:47

Which means hashtag, hashtag Bishop use to students.

Carolyn Cochrane 46:54

It was just so funny to this detailed of every like, word they said to each other. And I said, Hi, me guessing. So I had to find out is

Kristin Nilsen 47:03

on purpose. She wanted to blow your mind. Yeah. For her. That's some creative expression. I love that. Well, the summer letters often because it's a time of separation. You're separated from somebody who is usually in your world, and you miss them. And so the summer letters can really have some longing in them. You can really miss them. And one of the main sources of letters in the summer, were the letters that we wrote home from camp, or the letters that you got from your family while you were in camp. Some kids didn't want to be at camp, so they're right. They're longing is like, come get me. Get me. I know parents who got those letters, and they had to decide no, we're not coming. And you also had to wait for your parent to write the letter and send it back saying no, we're not coming. It's not in a text. No, you're staying Yeah, I got one letter. I got one letter from my mom, in which she sent a few sticks of fruit striped gum. And it was confiscated. Before the letter even made it to my cabin. The letter was It was opened in every like prison. And I felt I felt so sad. There was such a sadness about that I felt violated that they opened my my letter and they took my gum. I mostly felt sad because my mom did this super nice thing. And they confiscated it like she was a criminal.

Michelle Newman 48:25

It may she sending you cigarettes on a razor.

Kristin Nilsen 48:29

But sometimes the writing of the letter sometimes that was required in Canada, okay, we're all going back to our cabin now. And we're gonna write letters home. And my mom's saved one of those letters. It's the only letter that I have written by me. Here it is on my stationery, see the little horse corner. And this is from July of 1977. Camp chi when just Lago city, Minnesota, which I would have told you was across the border in Canada, like somewhere near the Yukon, right? But it turns out, it was less than an hour from my house. And I wrote, dear D mej, and animals. So that's dad, mom, Eric, Jenny and animals. Katherine and I just had a silly fight. She put my swimsuit on the ground, my towel too, and said, hey, somebody threw it on the ground. So I went out and hung it up, and I threw hers on down. And this went on for about 15 minutes, and I have gone horseback riding.

Michelle Newman 49:26

That's all together. Yes.

Kristin Nilsen 49:28

I went to church, which I hadn't planned. It was the camp church. There were only about 10 people there and it was only 10 minutes. The following year, I didn't go to church. And when my parents asked why I told them it was because I forgot which religion I was solid answer right. I thought that was pretty good. I suddenly realized that I had agency in this situation I don't have to go to church if I don't want to. I just forgot what religion. So there were also letters to the people you met at Camp your camp friends who would become your Pen pals. Oh yeah. And camp is one of those very intense experiences where you bond with people really quickly. So you could spend one week with someone and you feel like they're your best friend, right? And that's where these letters would get very intense. And the same could be said for camp counselors. That intensity was felt not just by the campers, but also by the counselors who are having their own camp experience. And I have a letter from a friend literally as we were separating after a long summer of being camp counselors together, side by side seven days a week for the whole summer. So this is from August of 1987. And it's clear this was written on the plane after leaving each other at the gate saying Goodbye dear steppin. Really work I'm gonna start. Let's start calling our stents din. Just not very, it's, I don't like it. deerskin I didn't think I would have anything to write about yet. But there are already things to tell you. First off, I almost bald when I got on the plane. I could not keep from crying. If I would have been at home alone, I would have had one of those. Throw yourself on the bed and cry till you're exhausted cries munchkin. You made me a wimp. I'm listening to Depeche Mode right now. And it reminds me of you. I'm not trying to be mushy. But you were my constant beloved companion for several weeks. And now I'm alone. It's just me and my scrambled egg brains. I also figured out why I miss you so much. I'm looking out the window right now. And the clouds are really cool looking. I won't even try to describe it. I miss you because I could turn to you and say Kristin look, and you would and then we'd start a conversation about Lord or Buddha or Allah knows what an end up talking about sex and a southern accent. The most congenial person in the world is Kristen, how about this a two page letter and we've only been apart for two hours. And then after she lands, she writes, I tried to call John but he wasn't home. At that point. I thought Kristen would say this is a sign. I've adopted a let's wait and see attitude. And I won't be waiting around. I miss you love to you and your family.

Carolyn Cochrane 52:04

Oh, I love fat. That's longing.

Kristin Nilsen 52:07

Reading that again, made me feel that that longing I had the longing for that experience that we had together because I was I was remembering the things that we did. But I had forgotten the closeness that we felt. And reading that letter helped me extremely experienced the closeness that we had.

Carolyn Cochrane 52:27

And hear those things about you that she admired and loved at you know how you would listen? I mean, that sentence right there that just, you know what, that's the Kristen that we know, I mean, congeniality and all those things that she mentioned, you are that person and just to read someone else, having experienced that, and you weren't asking like what are all the things you like about me? Just offering that and why she was missing you so much. I just so sweet.

Kristin Nilsen 52:53

And again, something she probably would not have said in person. Right? She would not have said and I'm consistent because that last part of the letter where she said, Kristen would say this is a sign on the door. Stop chasing him. This is a sign. Yeah, that's something I would say right now.

Carolyn Cochrane 53:10

Amen. Yes, indeed. Well, it's good to know you're you've always been you, Kristen. Isn't that

Kristin Nilsen 53:16

nice? It was it was very validating to read stuff like that again.

Michelle Newman 53:31

We've touched on this a little bit. And I know that for the three of us, and I know that for many, many of you listening, the letters that you've saved or the letters that might be I would argue even the most meaningful are the ones that you wrote, and that you received from friends after you had a move, especially after you had a hard move. I have this box here. And this is one of a few boxes I have that's just like a shoebox just full of letters. These letters in this box right here. These letters saved me. And I know that sounds dramatic. But it's true. When I moved away from Washington the summer between ninth and 10th grade, as you've heard me say many times on this podcast, I was gutted. I mean traumatic with a capital T Like honestly, it's still something I work on in therapy. So as you can imagine getting these letters pretty much weekly from my two best friends, Kristen, and Lisa, and writing back to them weekly. It was everything to me, going back and reading all these letters. They're not full of like monumental life events, except for the whole a lot of the boys stuff at the time was very monumental, but they're truly just gossip. They're mostly written in class. They're just gossip about all the teachers and the people that I had left behind, full of inside jokes that we had. And you would think that all hearing all of that after I was so lonely and I was so devastated would make me really sad, but these are the things that kept me connected.

Kristin Nilsen 54:58

Yeah, mm. And keeping you feeling valued to you.

Carolyn Cochrane 55:03

They hadn't forgotten about you to write

Michelle Newman 55:05

exactly. Because another thing that was so meaningful to me about these, all these letters that I've kept, is that many of the people who wrote to me I was not best friends forever with, I was still friends with. But like, don't forget you guys, I moved away from a ninth grade class of not even 100 kids. And I moved into a humongous High School. And during a supremely difficult and lonely time as a new girl, and this enormous school, these letters reminded me yeah, that I still mattered. And I was still seen to my old friends months after I left, it reminded me that I still belonged somewhere, because I was feeling very isolated and very alone in this new school, even reading them. Now, as a 54 year old, I was like, really validated, like, ah, they did still miss me or like, they didn't just disappear, right, you

Kristin Nilsen 55:56

can still take that to your therapist today. And that's something that you can work on and think about it. This isn't a time before therapy. This was your therapy, because we didn't children didn't have therapists, back then. Unless they really know somebody really tragic had happened. And our parents were not thinking that moving was tragic. It was It was tragic, but no one was gonna get a therapist for their child because they moved. Now we would do that. Maybe we should just have them. But letters,

Michelle Newman 56:22

you know, like, well, well, think about this. You guys. It's what we talked touched on at the beginning of this episode. For Kids today, who have the trauma of moving between ninth and 10th grade are in the middle of your eighth grade year or whatever is no different, right? That's right. And they're going to still be connected via text for their old friends. But it's not I just I will always argue that's not the same as getting a letter because I'm guarantee, I guarantee you that if you move from Washington to Scottsdale, Arizona, right now, and you're getting texts every day from your old friends, they are not pouring out their hearts, or they're not as long and as detailed as these letters that I received were a longtime listener friends named Erica, who called into our voicemail on our website and left a very similar story to mine. Erica moved midway through eighth grade. Oh, braking. And it was a it was a culture shock because she moved from Boston to Atlanta. She said it was devastating. But she said, You know, when you're eight than a ninth grade, you're not just getting and this is what we've just talked about. You're getting not just getting small. What's your favorite movie, you're getting seven and eight, nine page letters from friends and boyfriends pouring their hearts out. And Erica said letter writing carried me through and I love this Erica, she said it bridged this gap. It bridged that gap between there and here. Right? Yeah, she said there's some serious confessions going on and all these letters because listeners, if you subscribe to our weekly reader, which is super easy to do, just go to our website at pot preservationists.com Or there's a link to subscribe and our link tree in our Instagram bio, subscribe to our weekly reader because this week, we're going to have a video that Erica sent us you guys up I think it's in her attic. She is one of those this is also so very 80s those wire baskets that are like grid, you know has like a four drawer basket. You will not believe the amount of letters Erica still house of drawers, power of drawers. And when she's rifling through them, she goes, there's some serious confessions going on in these letters. Erica, you have way more letters than I do. But like me, Erica says these letters saved her after she moved. I know that can sound dramatic. And I just

Kristin Nilsen 58:34

but I don't think it's true. We're fragile when we're that age, and people make fun of teenagers for being dramatic. That's we're fragile. We just are because we're dealing with big feelings for the first time and we don't have any experience with dealing with such big feelings. So we're just figuring it out. So the woman that I spoke about in the beginning where I photocopied all of her letters and sent them to her, and I haven't heard from her back. We wrote tons of letters back and forth, because she had moved away. And this I'm going to share with you the first letter that she wrote after moving away, because I was supposed to go say goodbye to her. And I couldn't make it. I couldn't. And she left without saying goodbye to me. And it was something that just ate away at me. And this first letter that she wrote me it's written on paper plates, because it was the only thing that she could find that was unpacked that she could write on. And I think this letter just really captures the moment that she moved at the exact moment something that could really only be captured in a letter or a diary. It would never be conveyed in a text or even a video because in a video let's face it, our videos are really sort of sanitized for social media. You're not revealing your feelings for in a video. Generally it's not a confessional here is what she writes on her paper plate. Dear FW which I think might be funky woman. I'm not thinking oh my god, I forgot About this first line, I'm gonna, I'm gonna read this first line, it is not appropriate. And I just need people to know that I am 100% sure that this woman would not say this today, but I am gonna say it as a testament to what we thought was okay in times previous Okay? Disclaimer. Dear FW, possibly funky woman. How was California? I bet you're tanner than Michael Jackson's behind. It sure was hard to actually drive out of my driveway. I'm glad you weren't there. I cried all the way out of a Noca it hit me that I'm actually on my way when we crossed the bridge into champion. I feel like I'm just visiting someone and we're hanging out in their house for a while. And it's weird. But Purple Rain is here. Can you believe it? I'm gonna see it this week. I saw a real cute guy at the mall yesterday. We kept making eyes at each other. Thank you for the picture. I heard it. Now when my hopefully new friends see it in my locker. They'll say, God, is that what all girls in Minneapolis look like? So pretty. I wish I had that much cleavage? Oh. I'll send you on an HB soon. H HB is her I'm thinking maybe hot babe. I don't know. I miss you so much already. And then she has to go to marching band practice. And she comes back and tells me she keeps going in her letter about the first day of school. And it's a very detailed documentation of her first day of school as the new girl. Oh, almost. It's not what you think it will. It's it's almost honestly, I wonder if it's true. Like compensation. There's compensation. It's like a Netflix movie for teens. It is 100% filled with commentary about the cute guys in her classes and marching band practice and who She's flirting with on the first day, and how she sat with the whole football team at lunch. And they called her darling Nikki semester. We all know what that means, right? Someone asked her for her phone number. On her first day, she gets asked out on a date on her first day. It's like she's writing a teen fantasy novel. And by the end of the week, her first week, she has three guys fighting over her and she was voted on to the student council. Well,

Michelle Newman 1:02:15

that's exactly what happened to me. So funny. Because I

Kristin Nilsen 1:02:20

remember reading this and I actually, I was a little bit jealous or envious.

Michelle Newman 1:02:27

I wonder if that was comfortable. But that could have been the this is her overcompensating more, you know, she has to project this that this is the way that this has happened. Yeah. Look

Kristin Nilsen 1:02:36

at Carolyn, she's raising your hand.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:38

Only because I may have written letters like that too. Oh,

Kristin Nilsen 1:02:44

information that says in bad

Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:46

extent. Yeah. But yeah, I think I probably told some untruths in some of my letters to make me sound like, you know, can you be I was more popular than I was, or there were more guys paying attention to me, there was no fat check. And it was kind of all these people, I thought, Oh, I wanted to be or I shouldn't be. But I could be in these letters. Because no one it's

Kristin Nilsen 1:03:11

it's almost a form of manifesting a little bit of making yourself feel better. It's a way to start changing your identity. I felt a little green because I never would have been that comfortable. As the new girl I would have been hiding in a corner, no one would have known my name. That was me. And on her first day, she was known as the new girl from Minneapolis and everybody wanted a piece of her. And I don't want to I don't want to say that she's not telling the truth here. I want to I want to trust that she her words were correct. But I also want to acknowledge that it was a thing that people did as a form as a form of their own therapy. Exactly that that was that that was possible. Preservation. It's self preservation. Yeah, absolutely.

Michelle Newman 1:03:50

What we need to remember too, is if we ever had a friend who moved away, now I'm thinking of the content of these letters, especially from Lisa, who was like, oh my god, I miss you so much. They saved them too. We have to sometimes forget and also as the person who moved away, it kind of weirdly made us feel better. Like they still miss us like we mattered to them too.

Well, you guys, I have a very special treat for you and longtime listeners. Now you're going to know this just proof that I have not been lying. You've heard me say many times that my friends and I who were obsessed seventh and eighth and ninth grade with Duran Duran, we pretended we were Duran Duran wives and we wrote letters and notes in class to each other as Duran Duran wives. Well, I came across just this letter solid gold is what it is because it's from Roxanne roads as my friend Kristen, who was getting a lot of getting a lot of airtime in this episode, Kristen. And it's from so for some reason written to Michelle Lavon. So maybe I was just Michelle and I think I was now because it was a French name. So I think I kept my name is

Kristin Nilsen 1:05:03

Michelle so Roxanne is her?

Michelle Newman 1:05:05

She's Russian Ambrose. Yes, she's married to Nick. She was Nick his wife now, the whole thing if I show you guys another one of my many letters from Kristen, you will know that this is not her handwriting. Okay, this was Roxanne roses handwriting and this entire letter is written in character. And this is exactly what we did. And while I don't often have those notes to share with you guys, I'm just going to give you a little taste of what they were like because I got this. This is from 28 December 1984. Dearest Michelle Lavon tell Simon ello A L O E. And I have good news for both of you. Yesterday morning on her way to the Buckinghamshire modeling agency Simon's ex Claire Stansfield. That's really her name if you guys remember I've said that in an episode before. Simon's ex Claire Stansfield was assassinated by her pimp, because he found out that she was a transvestite. You mourned many rejoiced. Well, anyway, how was your Christmas Simon got you a Rolls Royce. a lifer must be rough. Yeah. Ah. Life must be rough. Nick and I decided to take it easy this Christmas. We just stayed home and had strawberries and champagne and exchanged gifts. We bought each other 145 carat gold rings with six set diamonds with inscriptions. His parents sent us tickets to the Broadway play Lavon and later in later rounds. So when's your baby? Do? Have you picked a name? Have you picked a name? When Nicky James was born? We'll had to pick his. We had to pick his name on the spur of the moment because we didn't have one. Andrea Nicole was named when we brought her home because she looked so much like Andy and Nick. Oh, you guys know Andy is another one of the members of Duran Duran, right. Oh, green eyes, dark hair, pug nose and big lips. At least she has an X eyes and lips. Okay, this is my favorite part. I just want to see if you guys know what she's referring to. You will also disclaimer guys, this is this is very 1984 and it's based on a 1984 very popular album. So we went to Ethiopia last week. I never realized that while I was having fun. There was a world outside my window. A world of dread and fear. Well doubts know. Their families are so famine infested. Well, looks like the night boat has arrived with my favorite wild boy. Duran Duran fans. You're gonna get all this here we go. So I better be running wild to catch up with La Luna. I promise I won't have careless memories. Just something on my mind. I'll tell you about the carnival later. Better go because Nick is hungry like the wolf. Oh, my God. Merry Christmas. Happy New Year and feed the world. Love Roxanne. Isn't that great? Larry, it taught me so much. I loved it. Yeah. So if that is not a time capsule for me. I don't know what is. But I want to say that something I know none of us thought about all of those decades ago when we were tucking these letters and notes into shoe boxes is that these letters are such time capsules. I want to share first of all, just a few examples I came across. Are you watching The Thorn Birds? Maybe they already asked you that in the last letter. Anyway, that show just kills me. It's so sad from Lisa. Right now. I'm watching Days of Our Lives. It's so sad. Kimberly is telling Shane she doesn't love him. But really she does. But she has to say she doesn't to pay to protect him from Mr. Kiriakis. He's a jerk off. Like you almost care. It's so sad though. I'll tell you what I'm wearing. It looks dumb. You're gonna die. I'm wearing the Levi's that I wore to the Duran Duran concert. Then I'm wearing Kristen's plain black T shirt under my white forenza sweater with this black and gray weaved like Sweater Jacket thing if you can imagine that exclamation point.

Kristin Nilsen 1:09:08

But I love how it's documenting. Like you said it's a time capsule. You couldn't make a list of all of the things both in the things that you just read and and I think in all of my letters, there are cultural references. Their Purple Rain is here they're calling Yes, yes right Pink Floyd is on the radio I saw journey Do you still like journey? In every single one. We're talking about the things that are happening around us and it isn't like it's a timestamp.

These are all letters that we got from people when we were in high school after we moved but there's another time when pretty much everybody moves. When high school is over. Some of us went to college. Some of us stayed home while our friends went to college. Some of us moved out on our own and started adulting right away. Graduating from high school is a time of massive migration and separation. And letter writing becomes more important than ever. Because again, long distance was expensive. Or

Carolyn Cochrane 1:10:07

you guys, this was also a time, at least in my life that my parents wrote letters to me some of those letters meant so much to me. Now, they didn't mean as much to me then. But when my dad wrote to me, and it would be on like Office letterhead on Texaco stationery, and it would be a very basic letter, like, Oh, I just had a meeting about quality issues, I'm gonna have a conference call at whatever. And Mom and I have bowling tonight, and she's hopefully going to use the new ball, I got her for Christmas, so very like everyday stuff. And he'd always include like a $5 bill. And I think I'm so grateful one that I saved those letters, because I'm pretty sure at the time, I just probably glanced at the words and grabbed that $5 Bill and ran out a margarita. So Long Island, Long Island Iced Tea. So to have those now, and my dad had such distinguishable handwriting in eligible but distinguishable so you could, I would recognize that in a heartbeat anywhere. And so going through these letters, when I came across that one, it was just like, My heart stopped just seeing the writing, I didn't know what the word said or anything, it was just see and read. And my dad didn't write that much. So there are not a whole lot of instances where I have a chance to save his writing. So I am so grateful that for whatever reason, this letter I saved because honestly, it was probably the money. And then I'm glad I didn't chuck it in the trash.

Michelle Newman 1:11:30

Well, that is like I said earlier, I mean, that's one of the things that's lost now with, with without people writing letters anymore, is the meaning of the handwriting. And like, I wish I don't have any letters that my dad wrote me, or at least I haven't come across them if I do, but I do have my own little autograph book. Remember when we all carry a little autographed books and we fold it all the pages and, and, you know, he wrote a page for me and and so I do have an example a sample of his handwriting. Handwriting you, you can't minimize the importance of it. And we don't often have any more samples I'm done writing at are ready because kids rarely

Kristin Nilsen 1:12:10

have a signature. I also got letters from my dad on occasion in college, it's very similar to what you're saying, Carolyn, because he also had extremely distinctive handwriting. And at the time, I didn't think much of it except for the fact that dads don't often do the letter writing, right? The moms do the letter writing. So just for all of you dads out there who are listening, just know when something arrives from the dad, you you perk up a little bit like, Oh, like this could be elusive. This could and I did I kept I kept them all, just like you said, I'm not sure that I took it to heart at the moment. But I did save it because it was a lucid God, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 1:12:51

I mean, that's the thing when, you know, my dad has passed on. So it's that much more meaningful. I'm never gonna get a handwritten anything from him again or again. So this is, you know, a moment in time and again, he held it. He, you know, just wrote this every day kind of life that he had, and it just means a lot. And I'm so glad that I saved

Kristin Nilsen 1:13:14

it. You have a little piece of him. Yeah. How mundane it was you have a little piece of his mundane life in your hand. Okay, there's one topic you guys that we have not yet talked about. And that is love letters. The amount of information we got from people about love letters, the love letters that the three of us found. I think it would be egregious to not talk about love letters in this episode. But we've run out of time. There's no time. Apparently, this topic was just much bigger than we thought it was. But you will get an opportunity to hear our conversation about love letters. If you are a Patreon supporter. We just had to scoop it out of this episode, and it will be sent out to all of our Patreon supporters. There's lots of juicy stuff in the app you want to hear the day I love

you guys, this is an important conversation that we're having today. Because let's not forget, this is how history is written in letters and diaries. Without them we have no history books, which means personally, these letters are our own personal documentaries of who we were and what was happening in our lives at various times. And the reason this is relevant to Gen X pop culture is because letters are now a generational thing. They no longer exist for the newest generations. This is a practice that ended with the advent of email and texting. How will history be recorded? You guys I'm freaking

Carolyn Cochrane 1:14:48

out. Where will the primary sources be? That's right.

Kristin Nilsen 1:14:52

And don't say video because it's not the same because of what we just said video is sanitized for social media.

Michelle Newman 1:14:58

Right? It's all digital. It's not enough. We need we need that. Well, you know what I mean? We need the handwriting we need the we need the handwriting. We need the on trashes things.

Kristin Nilsen 1:15:06

We need the truthfulness that came with being one to one with that piece of paper, knowing that it was going to the singular person, it wasn't going to be broadcast to the world. I totally agree. But even more important is how letter writing created, nurtured and deepened our relationships. We said things in letters we could never say in person, things that helped us grow closer to the people we cared about things that would never fit in a text message. The response that we got to this topic, like Carolyn said, was overwhelming, surprisingly. So we had no idea how strongly people felt about the letters they sent and received over their lifetimes. And so we're not going to end it here. Next week, we will be back with a woman who felt just as strongly about letters as you all do. And she decided to do something about it. And she wrote a letter to every single one of her 580 Facebook friends,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:15:57

handwritten letter, you guys, and her name is Amy Wineland daughter's. And you guys met her back in a bonus episode we did in June of 2021. When we invited her on to talk about her first book called you cannot mess this up a true story that never happened, which is a novel about a woman who goes back in time and meets her 10 year old self in 1978. Now she's back with her second book, Dear Dana, that time I went crazy and wrote all 580 of my Facebook friends, a handwritten letter. That's title ever. It's an experience that changed her life. And she has some very profound things to say about what letter writing did for us growing up, and what it can still do for us going forward.

Michelle Newman 1:16:39

You know, you guys have we always say at the open of our podcast today, we're saving. And today we're saving whatever. I think today, we probably mean it more than ever. All right. And I think if you listen next week, and you listen to our conversation with Amy, you will want to go find some cute stationery and you will want to save the art of letter writing.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:01

I know I do. Yes, for sure.

Michelle Newman 1:17:03

We want to thank those of you who left voicemails on our website, telling us your letter writing stories and how meaningful letter writing was to you. Yes,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:15

and they're great to hear you all share your stories in your own words. There's nothing like it really. Yeah, they're they're so fun.

Unknown Speaker 1:17:23

So take a letter from Mario. Listen to my wife. See I will be coming home.

Michelle Newman 1:17:37

And today's episode was brought to you by Hallmark. Mrs. Grossman's? No it was brought to you by Julie, Angie, Melissa, Heather, Helene, Teresa, Liz, Emily, Melanie, Jill, Diane, Colette, Kelly, Sharon, Barbara, Charles, Courtney and Allie.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:17:59

Those are just a few of our patrons and people who made one time donations on our Pay Pal site. We are so grateful for you all it really does help us keep on truckin. So if you're not already a patron, we promise you get lots of fun perks. So go visit patreon.com or our website, or a link in bio, and you can see how you can sign up to be a patron or you can make a one time donation on our website. In

Kristin Nilsen 1:18:26

the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast courtesy of the cast of Three's Company to good times to Happy

Michelle Newman 1:18:32

Days to Little

Carolyn Cochrane 1:18:34

House on the Prairie where they wrote a lot of letters,

Michelle Newman 1:18:38

shares.

Kristin Nilsen 1:18:40

The information opinions and comments expressed on the pop culture Preservation Society podcast belongs solely to Carolyn the crush ologists and hello Newman, and are in no way representative of our employers or affiliates. And though we truly believe we are always right, there's always a first time the PCPs is written produced and recorded in Minneapolis, Minnesota Home of the fictional w j m studios and our beloved Mary Richards Nananana. Keep on truckin and may the Force be with you

Transcribed by https://otter.ai