Signed, Sealed, REdelivered: The GenX Art of the Handwritten Letter

Carolyn Cochrane 0:01

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Kristin Nilsen 1:22

Hi everybody, and welcome to our encore presentation of episode number 158 signed, sealed delivered the Gen X art of the handwritten letter. This is not actually a terribly old episode. It was released less than a year ago, but we're bringing it to you again today because there's a very specific and related conversation we wanted to have that has a surprising connection to letter writing, and that is that one of our Gen X icons is celebrating a 50th birthday in november of 1974 Hello Kitty was Born.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:56

I know

Kristin Nilsen 2:00

it never even occurred to me that she hadn't been born previously.

Michelle Newman 2:05

I was gonna say that too. I was really surprised by that, although I think then that makes all of our obsession with Hello Kitty make a lot of sense, because it had just started. You guys, it's just one more thing, that we're the Hello Kitty generation.

Kristin Nilsen 2:20

We're the Hello Kitty generation. We're

Michelle Newman 2:22

the generation, yeah, the big wheel generation, the Star Wars generation. We're all of it. We're the best.

Carolyn Cochrane 2:29

And I feel like it's the first cutesy thing. Like, you know, we'd have, we had our holly hobby, we have our Raggedy Ann. We have these things that are a little more traditional and old fashioned. And all of a sudden, like, in my mind, Hello Kitty. Was this first kind of Boppy, cute paint, kind of fun, bubbly, publicious.

Kristin Nilsen 2:48

It was a thing. It was, I mean, to say, I say icon on per on purpose, because it is iconography from our childhood. It is a very visual symbol of our childhood, and it was so recognizable. So I heard about this on NPRs the world. If anyone listens to Marco Wurman, hi, Marco Wurman. It took me by such surprise, because, like I said before, it never occurred to me that there was a time in which we didn't have Hello Kitty. But then I remembered when I first met her, and it would have been right around 1975 at a little shop in my neighborhood called Little kids

Carolyn Cochrane 3:20

and little Yes,

Michelle Newman 3:23

oh my god, it's L, I L, yes,

Kristin Nilsen 3:25

Lil. It's lil. And it took my neighborhood by storm, and it was where everybody bought their birthday presents. Everything was lil and and super cute. And there she was at little kids, and she became a phenomenon in my neighborhood because of all the little things that you could buy with Hello Kitty on them, like little colored pencils and little

Michelle Newman 3:47

notebooks. They are the little

Kristin Nilsen 3:51

and it was every birthday party gift came from little kids. So after listening to the story and then getting all nostalgic about my special relationship with little kids, I sent a message to Carolyn and Michelle that simply said, Hey, were you guys into Hello Kitty? And the response was swift.

Michelle Newman 4:11

Well, it's so true, because Carolyn, like you just brought up, you know, we had all the holly hobby things like the play sets and the lunch boxes and, you know, paper dolls and Rag Dolls, but this was almost the first thing that we the little things. Like nothing else came with little things, little you guys, I still have my little hair brush, and I also have a little comb. And my little comb has, it's in a little. It's missing a lot of teeth, but it comes in a little Hello Kitty if I find it right now. But you know, if you guys have any of your old stuff, send me a picture and I'll post some stuff on the Weekly Reader or in social media this week. And listeners, you too. But the little comb, it's like the little Hello Kitty the top. Has the mirror. Do you remember when I told you, in our like, back to school shopping, how my family would go to San Francisco every summer for this big furniture show that my stuff warehouse? Yes, we would go to the esprit outlet factory. Yeah, the other big draw that we did every single time we were in San Francisco is they had the whole it was the only place at the time that I know of that had the whole Sanrio store. This was a big deal. So this is probably about 1978 and you guys, I went nuts in the Sanrio store.

Kristin Nilsen 5:38

So the interesting thing is, I just have to point out that this holds true even today, everything's better when it's little. If you miniaturize something, it's better. Okay, so what does this have to do with handwriting? Why would we talk about Hello Kitty with handwriting and handwritten letters? So there is an origin story to Hello Kitty. We all know. She comes from Japan, and her story began with stationery because she was the mascot for the stationary store started by Sanrio, and she was created to make these stationary items more attractive to young girls and women. Okay, check you did it, and she even has a backstory. Did you guys know that she's not a cat? Well,

Michelle Newman 6:24

I just learned it recently, and I reject that

Kristin Nilsen 6:28

I am not. I'm also not comfortable with it. It's kitty,

Michelle Newman 6:32

yeah, all her friends are also animals, yeah, very,

Kristin Nilsen 6:36

very good point. Are they her pets? But I did always feel like they were her pets, sort of, anyway, Hello Kitty is a girl. She's a little girl. Her name is Kitty White, and she lives in London.

Michelle Newman 6:45

That's her backstory. No, she No, right, not. She lives in Tokyo.

Kristin Nilsen 6:51

I agree. She's a kitty, and she has kitty pets, and she lives in

Michelle Newman 6:54

Tokyo, because, in case you guys all picture the back of all your Hello Kitty things, and you would always see all the Japanese writing, yes, over like the United States prices and stuff that's that's as familiar to me as the actual item. I agree, seeing all the Yeah. So she's from Japan, but the

Kristin Nilsen 7:12

connection to letter writing goes even farther, because her style, her her image, the way she was created, was born of an esthetic in Japan that was propagated by 14 year old girls, which was this bubbly, loopy, pretty handwriting that eventually came to be called kitten style. Now the handwriting that they're describing, okay, first, let me just emphasize that her image is inspired by the handwriting of 14 year old girls, hard stop.

Carolyn Cochrane 7:42

I know, gosh, what's gonna be I mean, are we losing that? Will there never be a Hello Kitty inspired thing again? Because we're not writing anything. We don't have to speak tan

Michelle Newman 7:52

writing. Young kids, Gen Z don't know how to write their signature. They

Kristin Nilsen 7:57

don't have a signature. They don't know how to write their name. They don't

Michelle Newman 8:01

okay. Sorry, back, sorry,

Kristin Nilsen 8:02

back to the 14 year old. This is but this is amazing, because what struck me is that this loopy, bubbly handwriting style that they're referring to, we did it too. Yeah, we did it not because we were inspired by them. I mean, I thought I made it up. Didn't you think you made it up? I did too.

Michelle Newman 8:19

I mean, nobody else put heart dotted their eyes with hearts, did they No, no, just me right, or just a circle, or a circle,

Carolyn Cochrane 8:27

or the E, where that's like, comes down, or what I had the like that backwards, three for the

Kristin Nilsen 8:32

E, yes, and with a line,

Michelle Newman 8:36

with the line right, and the s, the s that goes a straight line, yes, And then a curve,

Kristin Nilsen 8:41

yeah, yeah. And it was an art form that we well, okay, I'm saying we I, I'm just hoping everybody's concurring. I practice

Unknown Speaker 8:49

Yes. I

Carolyn Cochrane 8:51

was gonna reinvent my handwriting every school year.

Michelle Newman 8:54

Wait, did you guys ever try? Did you guys ever try to change your G's where you did the circle with the line, and then the other circle, and, oh yeah, like eyeglasses. It looks like exactly on their side. But then the top one has that little, tiny, little like, almost like a little hyphen. Oh, sorry, Carolyn, you're right. A little has a little high level as long for me. That didn't last as long for me, but it was labor intensive,

Kristin Nilsen 9:18

right? But I just think it's so fascinating that this, that Hello Kitty was, was inspired by this thing that we were all doing, that we thought we were doing organically. Were we influencing each other, or is it magic?

Carolyn Cochrane 9:33

It's magic. I think it might be magic. Just think it's magic. It's,

Michelle Newman 9:37

of course, in a cart situation, I think chicken in an egg situation, right?

Kristin Nilsen 9:41

And now it makes me even I love her even more, knowing that that she was created based on the handwriting style of 14 year old girls in Japan. Yes, and it is this, this very cutesy style they really were trying with Hello Kitty to make her cute. In a way that made you want to cuddle her like a baby. And they say babies. When you see babies, it gives you an instinct to be protective and to take care of it. And so that was the feeling that they wanted you to get with Hello Kitty. And so when you are writing a letter, you're really extending that's a form of taking care of somebody. You're checking in with them. There's you're sending love to them, right? Yes. And I do have to say, after we aired this episode, the letter writing episode, I got some of the most beautiful handwritten letters from people. It really did inspire people to write. And everything that we said in the episode, which you'll hear, I'm not going to say anything about it it proved our point that whatever comes to you in a handwritten letter feels so much more special.

Carolyn Cochrane 10:48

Yes, you know what I'm gonna follow. I'm gonna follow that with. So you've heard me talk about my daughter, Maggie. She's 30, and in she has kind of a front face, a front facing customer job. So she encounters a lot of different people who she has relationships with. She sees these people regularly, and so she knows how I feel about letters. And the company gave everybody some note cards with the logo on the top, and Maggie decided she was going to write to some of these people that she saw all the time that came in and used the services. Oh my gosh, you guys. I gotta tell you, she these people. Some people have framed these letters, these notes, and she's like, people have cried. She has been like, recognized in the newsletter because people have gone to, like the higher ups to say how much these hand written notes have meant. I am not kidding you guys. I mean, I'm just, and it's, she's like, Mom, it's maybe like four sentences. It's not even an entire letter. It is just. And that people are saying exactly what we said in this episode. They are recognizing that, oh my gosh, you took time out of your day to think of me for this period of time, to take a pen, write these things out, then put it in an envelope, find my address, put a stamp on it, and I cannot she is just she's filled when these people are so filled, and she's amazed at how little effort it really took to make this huge impact, and people are like, they don't get letters or notes or anything in the mail anymore. So it's that much more special, too. And so yeah, it's you guys. I think we say it again in this episode, but I really want you to understand how important and how much of an impact 10 minutes out of your day. It doesn't have to be this epistle of four pages. It's just that you are thinking of someone, and it's a little, it's

Kristin Nilsen 12:49

a little, it's a little thing that has a big, big difference. And I want to say that it's that's that is a beautiful thing, but I also get sort of a clinching in my heart when you tell that story, because the impact was so great, I think that is evidence of the loss that we're experiencing 100% Yeah, yeah.

Michelle Newman 13:09

It's the lack of connection that we feel in this digital age, too. And I was so, so thrilled to get some letters from friends that had listened to the episode and wrote me letters. I was I was ridiculously giddy. And Rachel, if you're listening, because I know you listen to a lot, yours was one of the ones I'm talking about. And you guys had inspired me, like we talked about, to write more. Did you guys have Hello Kitty? I'm just kind of circling back now. Did you have Hello Kitty stationary? I did too. I can picture it.

Kristin Nilsen 13:41

I can picture it. And an eraser didn't

Michelle Newman 13:45

write. You usually didn't write with the little things, but you had no sense. No, you couldn't they were so cute. But I think right now in our country, we all are experiencing that just craving for connection and kindness. And so I hope that those of you listening who haven't heard this episode yet, do take the time to keep listening, and those of you who already listened, however many months ago it was, I hope you listen again, because right now is a great time with the holidays coming up to you know, everybody who even sends cards anymore, they don't even, oh, that's a lot of people even have the card company print the address so they don't even touch the card. They don't and you even have the company send it for you. Some people aren't even sending their right, right, and, like Julie, they don't sign it, nothing. No, my good friend Julie always, even if it's the Shutterfly card with the printed picture and the printed greeting, Julie always then hand writes a very personal note, even if it's one sentence. It was so fun to get together with you guys in July. I hope we can see you next year. Bye. Something. And I look forward to her card, because I know it's going to have something in her handwriting which is so pretty. And to me, that's a card I want to open more than one that's just

Carolyn Cochrane 15:12

thinking of you when she wrote that, like she had to think, yes, Michelle, you know, and then write a specific note.

Michelle Newman 15:19

And it makes me think that she's doing that for everybody, that she's writing it to and truly right now, I hope Julie's like crap. I wasn't gonna send Christmas cards now. I

Carolyn Cochrane 15:31

gotta send one to Michelle. You have to write notes on everybody's

Kristin Nilsen 15:35

let's be honest, the Christmas card is dead. And, yeah, reason that it's dead is because of social media, because it became expected that you would send a photo. And so that became another, you know, piece of labor that you had to go through. And then people started posting their Christmas card photos on social media. So then before the card, so when you get it, you're like, I already saw this on Facebook, exactly. So then the urgency to do it is is gone. Plus, everything is pre written. Some people literally don't even sign the card. So they're don't send it to me. I'm gonna be that person right now. If you have a pre printed card with a photo that you put on Facebook, don't send it to me. I don't need it. I don't need it. I'm

Michelle Newman 16:22

not Brandon. I just talked about this, like, two nights ago. I said, Listen, are you gonna be really upset with me if I don't do a Christmas card this year because of the work people you know? You have this expectation we get them from every single person in his office. I don't know any of these people or their children. I just, I'm like, Who are these people? He said, No, not at all. And I said, Because, God, I'll even forget the paper store I was just at. Maybe it was Barnes and Noble. I just want to go back to the old fashioned Christmas card, Christmas, and I want to write something with no picture.

Kristin Nilsen 16:52

Don't you have older you get cards from older women. Of course, it's not mad older women who send just the card with the handwritten note inside. And there was a time where you were like, come on, Florence, like everybody knows you have to have a photo. Well, now I'm like, Oh, thank you, Florence, thank you for sending me this beautiful card. And I do think we have to go back, because there was a time when we were sitting down and we were writing heartfelt notes to all of these people that we hadn't had any contact with for a full year. So what that means is, if you're going to go back to that, you might have to winnow your list, because it's that is a lot of labor, but it's okay, because, like you said, you're sending them to people you don't even know, because somebody from the office or something like that. So we just have to be more mindful about what is the purpose of sending a Christmas card? And who remains on that list? Yeah, and

Carolyn Cochrane 17:45

I think I'm going to curate an evening you'll have to fly in, Michelle, because, you know, you're not here where we play music. We have hot site, and we all bring our cards and our stamps, and we sit around and we write to our we, you know, our heartfelt things, and we do it together, so there's an incentive to kind of actually do it,

Michelle Newman 18:07

because I'd be talking, well, yeah, there's that. Yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 18:12

this is so interesting. I did not expect this conversation to go into Christmas cards, but that has a really worthwhile conversation, because we've it's just another example of where the system has been disrupted and we've lost something important. Yes,

Carolyn Cochrane 18:25

I could not agree more, and we chat about all of that in today's encore episode, speedy delivery, the Gen X art of the handwritten letter. So we hope you all enjoy and please excuse my crappy audio in today's episode. It's like I was, I don't know, in some underground bunker when I recorded it, but the episode is great. So please enjoy. Welcome

Kristin Nilsen 18:48

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

Michelle Newman 18:56

believe our Gen 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 19:07

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, I'm

Michelle Newman 19:18

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

Carolyn Cochrane 19:23

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, well, 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 experience. Is and so in today's episode, we are 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 crowd sourcing 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. It's

Kristin Nilsen 20:35

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, it's

Carolyn Cochrane 21:08

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

Michelle Newman 21:27

don't have anything to do with my stickers anymore. Yeah. I mean, you guys, 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 21:47

a forever quality to letters that we don't have with anything digital there, 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. And would you like to hear one on the last gas 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 22:54

Love this for the frame shop and get that that's making my heart burst.

Carolyn Cochrane 22:58

That is Oh my gosh. Just so many of those lines like, Thank you for coming home. That's

Unknown Speaker 23:04

kind of where were you?

Michelle Newman 23:07

Oh, that was that time, Kristen, you guys, it's so true. Kristen, 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

Kristin Nilsen 24:07

right, right? I didn't think that this was be, this would be archival, by any means, right? And I was so grateful this week for the opportunity to dig through my face 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. Where I was, and I was like, Oh, you are nice.

Carolyn Cochrane 25:02

Who knew at that point how much that was going to mean to you? That's right, 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 25:19

right. And you said, both of you have said already something about the confessions that you know we poured into the letters. And then Kristen, you 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, 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 stationary, 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 were

Kristin Nilsen 26:49

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. Well, it made me wonder, like 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 going to give her the benefit of the doubt on that

Carolyn Cochrane 27:48

one, and 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 the intention, but then we go through all the thoughts of, oh, I have to have the paper and have to have the time and have so much I want to say, because this was such a great thing this person did, and time we 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 28:36

worth it. Is worth it. And again, 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 before recording this episode from a friend. Thank you, Paula, 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 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 29:33

now, that's so that's so important, it is, and

Carolyn Cochrane 29:38

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. Mind, and then it's different. Then this is uninterrupted thought, which, goodness knows, I need, because I forget half the time what I'm going to say if somebody interjects. So I think it's therapeutic on so many levels for the person that's writing it, the person that's reading it. Yeah, you get such a bang for your buck, you guys with your hand writing letters also,

Kristin Nilsen 30:22

have you ever had something that you can't say out loud? Yeah, something 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 30:36

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 stationary, the stickers, the pens, even stamps. Speaking of stamps, you know, our kids will never know what a book of stamps is, because no book of stamps we have those wonderful sticker stamps like they don't have to lick a stamp anymore. It's just or

Kristin Nilsen 31:03

when it was on a spiral,

Michelle Newman 31:07

everybody right now is going because our tongues are real, exactly

Carolyn Cochrane 31:11

right. That's exactly right. There was such fun stationary and stuff when we were young. I don't know if you guys remember any of it, but I was really who screwed in when some of our listeners shared some of their stationary sticker stories. For instance, our friend Jennifer asked if we remembered ink blot 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

Michelle Newman 31:47

stickers Hello 1970s

Carolyn Cochrane 31:50

because they would say you would 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, dot, dot, dot, the fear of writing. Oh,

Michelle Newman 32:08

my God, wait, what are these? COVID I don't remember. These are called stickers,

Carolyn Cochrane 32:11

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 imagine he's saying you gotta write, or should I just sell my mailbox Like, you jerk. But they're kind of cute and fun. Yeah, and I've got to say you guys, if you go on eBay and look up some of this stationary and note cards and things that we had back in the 70s, gosh, they go for a lot of money. They do kept any of that stuff like those ink but stickers, you're gonna make a pretty penny. Here's another one that I was who screwed dude with you guys, our friend Marvel and on Instagram, reminded me of paper by the pound. Do you guys remember paper by

those acrylic kind of stand with the color paper

Kristin Nilsen 33:04

color coordinate you got, like a pink paper and an orange envelope. Yes,

Carolyn Cochrane 33:09

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

Michelle Newman 33:27

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

Carolyn Cochrane 33:37

or fold into an envelope. It's kind of a postcard and the letter at the same time,

Kristin Nilsen 33:41

and it came with stickers that you closed it with, yes. Speaking

Michelle Newman 33:44

of stickers, oh my gosh, just the Mrs. Gross Do you remember all the little bears, and then you could put the ice

Kristin Nilsen 33:51

cream, build the stuff, yes, and

Michelle Newman 33:55

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 as well. Because again, when we post Mrs. Grossman's on social media, people go crazy. People go crazy.

Kristin Nilsen 34:09

I think you guys found this too when you went through your letters from this age. So you're a pre teen, a teenager, the letters almost 100% of the time mention 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.

Carolyn Cochrane 34:43

Yes, say, 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, you know, maybe it was my wallet school photo to a friend who had moved away. I. Um, the clippings? Yes, I have,

Kristin Nilsen 35:03

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 Davie doesn't look so hot. Then there's an article about a book called The One hour orgasm. And then one hour, the one hour orgasm,

Michelle Newman 35:43

did she comment? And then we would all be dead,

Kristin Nilsen 35:47

ouch. And then she said 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. This is 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 high

Michelle Newman 36:20

alley? 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,

Kristin Nilsen 36:43

right? Absolutely, and that, and I still learned about myself from her little notes and 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. But still, we were connecting. She we were already connecting about our childhood pop culture.

Carolyn Cochrane 37:09

Thank you, Colleen, yeah, and later,

Michelle Newman 37:11

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

Kristin Nilsen 37:24

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 would never say today. Fw, HB, one person called me stin, what sis, 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 crevice dibbon, and I remember, wow, I got Husker dude, because I was like, Oh, my God, it's Shabad. And sent me a letter to crevice dibbon, and we would talk Abby W, and this was in high school. This is not when we were little. It stuck. And we would go to practice after school and talk Abby W, okay, you're gonna need to

Michelle Newman 38:21

stop, because you're gonna start. Because you're gonna start

Carolyn Cochrane 38:25

triggering Carolyn. Long as the whole letter wasn't in,

Kristin Nilsen 38:28

it was not it was just the greeting. It was the greeting in the sign off, dear cristib In love shabanavin, letters

Carolyn Cochrane 38:34

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 were out of town. But then also grandmothers. Both of my grandmothers 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,

Kristin Nilsen 39:27

my 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 called them Grammy dollars. And so you'd be like, I don't have lunch money. You'd go looking for Grammys envelope, like, where are the Grammy dollars? I think. Lunch money. That's

Michelle Newman 40:01

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 Washington. 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 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 I'd be in the house, sometimes they'd be, yeah, because this is, like, eighth, ninth grade, you know. So

Kristin Nilsen 41:34

did you try and copy nene's handwriting? Because I also had a favorite band who had very distinctive handwriting, and she would write to me, and then the next letter I would write, I would try to

Michelle Newman 41:43

copy her handwriting. That's so cute. I don't remember doing that, but I just her ends are beautiful. Yeah, yeah,

Carolyn Cochrane 41:49

that 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. Let's 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.

Michelle Newman 42:23

Oh, it's going to make me cry.

Kristin Nilsen 42:25

There is a part in worldwide crush where she's writing a fan letter to Rory Calhoun and 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. Yeah, she will have his spit in her possession,

Michelle Newman 42:44

exactly what I would have. Yeah, it's 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 this

Kristin Nilsen 43:02

his hand, touched his skin cells could be on that page. 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 slaying 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, okay, I'm changing all the names in my letters, except for 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. Brian Adams opened 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. Whoo. She wrote that he'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 McGonagall. Well, by the end of the party, we were making out, well, some jerks from my class so that they were gonna 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 sleaze, 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 WB, which it took me a long time to figure out what WB is. That's right back.

Michelle Newman 45:06

This is so funny, because this is so similar to a lot of letters I want to talk about in a little bit, but the confessional, and I think you mentioned it already before 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 pour I have many letters who from people I will not name. Now, that's a good idea now, saying yes, we're talking 10th grade, went to a party, kissed this person, whoops, but I'm dating this person. This person found out now they're met and or hope this person doesn't find out. And I'm like, wow, I had moved away. I was the safe you were. 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,

Carolyn Cochrane 45:57

I 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 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, pre teens, 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 work around they wrote two letters, and so one they would share with their mother, Renee. Here's letter from Julie. And then there was the secret letter that was just between

Kristin Nilsen 46:46

two cousins. I

Michelle Newman 46:48

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 now I'm gonna go do 15 setups before bed. It drank a liter of water. Went to a party last night. They had Diet Coke.

Carolyn Cochrane 47:13

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 her 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. Oh, my God. And here's what she has to say.

Kristin Nilsen 47:55

See, 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 48:04

It's so emotional. It's so emotional.

Carolyn Cochrane 48:07

And again, I don't know serendipitous too, 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, oh yeah, partly responsible for this moment that she had.

Kristin Nilsen 48:23

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, not understanding how valuable they were. 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 day 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 in 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 49:31

Oh, my goodness, I

Carolyn Cochrane 49:34

love that

Kristin Nilsen 49:35

Mama's little angle. Well,

Carolyn Cochrane 49:38

I found a letter that I wrote to my mother too, 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. And it said, Dear Mom, our class had to write a letter. I've got good handwriting. The teacher did not yell at me. I. I love Carolyn.

Michelle Newman 50:04

I feel like, I feel like there's, there's two things that could have been happening that day in Carolyn's little 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 50:22

I think that was, were you a talker? Carolyn, 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 from the teacher. Yeah, that I talked a lot. So I think this is my chance to say and today, mom, yeah, I haven't gotten yelled at

Kristin Nilsen 50:38

them. 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 cursive? 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 raised their hands, and he just went, I don't know what to do, 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, I know. And that broke my heart. And it broke her heart too. Yeah, it broke her heart. She was like, What are you even saying? Like, no, I had an instance in third grade where we were writing on that paper that you're talking about, that school paper, and we were writing a letter, and I had very good penmanship, and I because I practiced, I really liked it. And I sat next to a girl named Anne Ewing, who did not have very good penmanship, and she had this great idea, this was going to be so funny. She said, Kristen, you put my name on your paper, and I'm going to put your name on my paper. And I was like, Oh, this is a funny joke. Let's do this. And when I got my paper back, I realized the it was not a funny joke. No, the joke was on me. And I got all these comments from the teacher, like, Kristen, this is not like you, Kristen, what's happened? And I just felt like my heart sank. I don't I was one of those people who cried when the teacher got angry with her, like, I just couldn't deal same. You got me an Ewing. You got me and her paper is like, oh my goodness,

Michelle Newman 52:29

an Ewing, one, annuity, zero.

Kristin Nilsen 52:34

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, not just writing things with an Ewing. 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 in 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 write I have $3.24 how much money do you have? She says, 40 years later, I'm still embarrassed about that.

Michelle Newman 53:28

I think it's darling.

Kristin Nilsen 53:32

How much money do you have? 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. 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

Michelle Newman 54:40

cultures. Their world culture. I can

Carolyn Cochrane 54:43

say that because I lived there. So

Kristin Nilsen 54:44

that's right. There was one woman who had a pen pal from Korea, and they would send things to each other that represented their culture. So this girl from Korea really was into Western culture, and her name is C Willis. C Willis would send her like T shirts and. And postcards and cassette tapes and things like that. Marvel Ann also had multiple pen pals from all over the world, including one from England whose address was literally Sherwood Forest.

Michelle Newman 55:11

Oh my gosh, isn't that great? And

Kristin Nilsen 55:14

she would give Marvel Ann a heads up about the new wave bands that hadn't hit the US yet. I would be all over that. And she remembers 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 hook up sad story. Though, the pen pal I got lived in Haiti, and by her third letter, she asked if her family could 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 56:01

That's a tough position to be in when you're like marble. I just wanted like someone from Sherwood Forest, yes, right,

Kristin Nilsen 56:09

oh, and, and your heart would just break for that person and know that you had absolutely nothing that you could do to help. I'm telling

Michelle Newman 56:15

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 56:24

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 in other parts of the world that didn't really understand it, because we had a pretty good in comparison. I

Michelle Newman 56:38

know life lessons, right, privilege. Yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 56:41

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. Listen to what Melissa had to say here, and we might cut that part out and just put hers at the bottom. I'm not sure exactly. So Nikki 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 supposed Zodiac match. Oh, and her Zodiac match are still in touch today on Facebook. 40 years later,

Carolyn Cochrane 57:21

I love those stories. Isn't that great Zodiac? And

Kristin Nilsen 57:25

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. Oh magazines, oh 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 crush as you. So Tanya commented on Instagram that she is still in touch with the Tiger Beat pen pal that she was matched with because they both liked Michael Damian. What's her Michael Damien, that's just the best. And then TL 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?

Michelle Newman 58:42

Such a so amazing.

Kristin Nilsen 58:44

I can't believe I didn't know this. I cannot believe I never did this to correspond with someone who was also ripping the Bee Gees posters out of Tiger bee and putting them on their walls like me. I can't believe I missed out on this opportunity, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 58:58

I don't, 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 going to get 500 letters and two bags full of people, but, but yeah, to have that to just talk about with somebody who got it yeah, would be

Kristin Nilsen 59:17

immediately Yes, whereas the regular pen pal, You didn't know anything about them except where they were from, and so I think that's where I was a little bit like, I don't know what I don't know who these are, but I don't know what to say.

Carolyn Cochrane 59:28

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 going to read them all, but one, I've got to tell you, she was so clever. It starts with this. She said, I know I 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, Ricky, she 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 like, 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 to her. Kelly got to the bottom and her bathing suit fell off. Oh my god. She was traumatized, because this person, meanwhile, I don't know who this person is, she's like, leaving me and still saying this very Yes, and she said she fell on him by accident. Oh my gosh, traumatizing 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 Michael Stanley. I won't say the real name, because obviously 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 have the shorts on. And he showed me his bishop eusta 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 days in. I'm

Unknown Speaker 1:01:57

staying at the campground. Then

Carolyn Cochrane 1:01:58

he said, Oh, I better go find my family. They'll leave without me. And I said, Okay. And then he said, See you later. And I said, bye, wasn't that exciting? And I love the dialog. I know. Do you know who it was? And then she in all caps, exclamation, explanation. Tells me the name, friends always. And then father Guido, although I did have father spotted Guido, war, 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 in so many letters we were busy sarcoid when we were little girls, yep, yes. And she also wanted me to know God's my witness swear to god that all of this is true, which means

Michelle Newman 1:02:54

hashtag, Bishop, eusta, student,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:02:59

I'm sorry. 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 that is on purpose.

Kristin Nilsen 1:03:09

She wanted to blow your mind. Yeah, good for her. I mean, that's some, that's some creative expression, right there. Loved that. Well, these 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. Their longing is like, come get me. Please. Come 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 everything, like prison, and I felt, I felt so sad. There was such a sadness about that I felt violated, that they opened 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. And

Michelle Newman 1:04:30

maybe she's sending you cigarettes and a raise.

Kristin Nilsen 1:04:35

But sometimes the writing of the letter, sometimes that was required in camp. Okay, we're all going back to our cabin now, and we're going to write letters home. And my mom saved one of those letters. It's the only letter that I have written by me. Here it is on my stationary. See the little horse in the corner. There's little horsey in the corner. And this is from July of 1977 camp chewing Chisago city, Minnesota, where. 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, M, E, j, 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 1:05:31

That's all together. Yes,

Kristin Nilsen 1:05:34

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. Yeah, sincerely love Kristen, and I'm doing like a little combo of pencil and pen and printing and cursing, trying it all out. 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 were 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 stin, really work.

Michelle Newman 1:07:00

I'm gonna start. Let's start calling our Sten stin.

Kristin Nilsen 1:07:04

It's just not very it's, I don't like it, dear stin. I didn't think I would have anything to write about yet, but there are already things to tell you. First off, I almost bawled 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 your 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 are 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, Kristen, look, and you would, and then we'd start a conversation about Lord or Buddha or Allah knows what, and end up talking about sex in 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 1:08:18

Oh,

Kristin Nilsen 1:08:19

I love that. That's longing. 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 re experience the closeness that we had,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:08:40

and hear those things about you that she admired and loved. You know how you would listen? I mean that sentence right there, that just and you know what? That's the Kristen that we know. I mean the 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 That's so sweet.

Kristin Nilsen 1:09:08

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, stop knocking on the door. Stop chasing him. This is a sign. That's something I would say right now.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:09:24

Amen, yes, indeed. Well, it's good to know you're you've always been, you. Kristen,

Kristin Nilsen 1:09:30

isn't that nice? It was. It was very validating to read stuff like that. Again, we've

Michelle Newman 1:09:34

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 shoe box, 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 boy 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, yeah,

Kristin Nilsen 1:11:02

and keeping you feeling valued too.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:11:06

Yeah, they hadn't forgotten about you, right?

Michelle Newman 1:11:08

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 in 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 they did still miss me or like they I didn't just disappear. You

Kristin Nilsen 1:11:59

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 something really tragic had happened, and our parents were not thinking that moving was tragic, it was It was tragic, but no one was going to get a therapist for their child because they moved now we would do that. Maybe we should just have them by letters,

Michelle Newman 1:12:25

you know, like, well, well, think about this, you guys. It's what we touched on at the beginning of this episode. For Kids today who have the trauma of moving between ninth and 10th grade or 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 long time 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. Our hearts are breaking, 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 eighth and 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? She said there's some serious confessions going on in all these letters. Because listeners, if you subscribe to our weekly reader, which is super easy to do, just go to our website at pop 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 has 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 power 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 1:14:38

but I don't think that 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 photo copied all of her letters and sent them to her and. Haven't heard from her back. We wrote tons of letters back and forth because she had moved away, and this I want 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, 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 sure, and 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 is 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 Anoka. It hit me that I'm actually on my way when we crossed the bridge into Champlin, 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 heart 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 one of I'll send you one of. 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. And it's almost, it's not what you think it will it's it's almost, honestly, I wonder if it's true, like compensation, there could be compensation. It's like a Netflix movie for teens. It is 100% filled with commentary about the cute guys in her classes and at 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, some poster goodness. 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 has voted on to the student council. Well,

Michelle Newman 1:18:19

that's exactly what happened to me. So funny, right?

Kristin Nilsen 1:18:23

I remember reading this, and I actually I was a little bit jealous or envious that she was so comfortable. 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 so preservation, absolutely.

Michelle Newman 1:19:06

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 is 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. Like, well, you guys, I have a very special treat for you and long time listeners. Now you're going to know this is 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 Rhodes. That's my friend Kristen, who's getting a lot of getting a lot of air time in this episode Kristen. And it's. For some reason, written to Michelle labonne. 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 Michelle. So

Kristin Nilsen 1:20:08

Roxanne is her.

Michelle Newman 1:20:10

She's Roxanne rose. Yes, she's married to Nick. She was Nick Rhodes's wife. Now the whole thing, if I just show you guys another one of my many letters from Kristen, you will know that this is not her handwriting, okay, this is Roxanne Rhodes's 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 labonne, tell Simon Hello, a, l, o, e, l, and I have good news for both of you. Yesterday morning, on her way to the Buckingham Shire modeling agency, Simon's ex, Claire Stansfield, that's really her name, if you guys remember, I've said that in an episode Simon's ex Claire Stansfield was assassinated by her pimp because he found out that she was a transvestite. Few mourned, many rejoiced. Well anyway, how was your Christmas? Simon, got you a rolls. Royce, a life must be rough. Yeah, E, H, A 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 karat gold rings with six set diamonds with inscriptions. His parents sent us tickets to the Broadway play le bon and Les Duran les de France. So when's your baby due? Have you picked a name? Have you picked a name? When Nikki James was born, we 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. You guys know Andy is another one of the members of Duran. Duran, right? Uh oh. Green eyes, dark hair, pug nose and big lips. At least she has Nick's eyes and lips. Okay, this is my favorite part. I would 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, a world outside my window. Their families are so famine infested. Well, it looks like the night boat has arrived with my favorite wild boy. Grand fans are going to 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. My God, Merry Christmas. Happy New Year and feed the world. Love Roxanne. Isn't that great?

Kristin Nilsen 1:23:09

Oh, my God, that is hilarious. It

Michelle Newman 1:23:12

tickled 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 talking 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 and tell me you just didn't get whoosh back to to 1985 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

Carolyn Cochrane 1:23:49

discussion about that Richard Chamberlain, who remember, had a relationship with Wesley year that Wesley thinks he got taken off days of our lives.

Michelle Newman 1:24:00

That's right. Well, speaking of Days of Our Lives, I forgot, were you guys days fans? No, I was okay. Well, here we go. This is Tuesday, October 29 1985 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 perfect to protect him from Mr. Kariakis. He's a jerk off like you almost care. It's so sad though. Lisa goes on to tell me that it's homecoming week for about three sentences, and then she says, we're going to wear togas with the blue and orange banner things across them. Neato Frito, hot damn. Shane snuck up to Kimberly's room, and he's telling her that he knows she had to say she didn't love him, then they kissed. I need a Kleenex. Just kidding. I

Kristin Nilsen 1:24:43

think I remember the whole show in a letter like they're real people. Yes,

Michelle Newman 1:24:48

okay, here's a what I'm wearing. Lisa wants to tell me what everybody in the class is wearing. So Ann Miller is wearing a brown and tan knitted sweater. Her mom made it. I looked back to see what else she was wearing. Wearing, and there stood mr. Thompson. Anyway, Anne is also wearing a beige linen skirt. I can't see her shoes, and to see them, I'd have to totally turn around, bend down about one and a half feet and then twist my head upside down. Might look a bit obvious as well. Okay, Eric, I'll tell you what he's wearing. White t shirt, old Levi's and bright red vans, the plane type that look like heads. 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 forensic sweater with this black and gray weaved like Sweater Jacket thing, if you can imagine that exclamation point.

Kristin Nilsen 1:25:37

But I love how it's documenting. Like you said, it's a time capsule, the forensic sweater, the vans, right,

Michelle Newman 1:25:43

okay, and the last one I'm going to share on the back of Kristen's envelope, and she's it's from Friston, because that was what we used to call her Michelle. Did you watch that made on TV movie called silences of the heart with Chad Lowe and Charlie Sheen? It was so sad. Who remembers that shad

Kristin Nilsen 1:26:02

Lowe was on TV in the 80s and Charlie Sheen?

Michelle Newman 1:26:06

This one is you

Kristin Nilsen 1:26:07

could make a list of all of the things, both in the things that you just read, and I think in all of my letters, there are cultural references. Purple Rain is here. They're calling Carolyn. 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 is like it's a time stamp. It really is. 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. What do you do when high school is over, many of us left all those people we passed in the hallways for so long, 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 and we weren't even it wasn't even possible to see people in person. I got one letter from a friend right after like the moment she lands on campus. This is september 1985, and here's what she says, there are so many cute men here. Drool city, three floors above us is supposed to be the man floor. I have to get down to some heavy meeting here. There are so many guys here. Lust city,

Michelle Newman 1:27:31

yes, all my letters I got from my friends who went away from college are full of the boys, the boys, the boys, the boys. You know what it was though, too. I felt like our letters from college all of a sudden it wasn't just the high school gossip, it was grown up news kind of to us. Yeah, it made you feel really grown up and

Kristin Nilsen 1:27:49

what your world was like compared to what their world was like. Because we were all entering a new world. Here at my school, we have this dorm, and our cafeteria is like this in Lost City, drill city. Oh, yeah. Well, I

Carolyn Cochrane 1:28:03

want to read then a little part of a letter that I got from my friend who went to St Olaf College.

Kristin Nilsen 1:28:10

Oh my gosh. Look what I'm wearing, right? I see it. I am wearing my st Olaf College shirt. That is too weird. That is crazy,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:28:16

because this is written on st Olaf College. Wow. And so she describes her dorm to me, she said, so see if this sounds familiar, Kristen, if you can guess what, maybe room she's in. Okay. She said, we have a really neat bay window. And Nancy brought a carpet and a couch so it's cozy. The ceilings are wood beamed too. It's super Neato. I'll have to send pictures.

Kristin Nilsen 1:28:45

I think she's in Melby. Okay, so

Carolyn Cochrane 1:28:48

Katie, were you in Melby?

Kristin Nilsen 1:28:49

Let me know, Katie,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:28:50

and then she says, Oh, I went to Minneapolis on Monday night to graffiti. It was such fun. It was Long Island Iced Tea night. Only $2 so I supported that bargain quite heavily. I danced all night with this really cute Junior, but he has blown me off. It doesn't look like any major scam is in store. Scam, yeah, scam, not only were we writing to friends from high school once we had gone on to college, but some of our friends that we made during college went on to study abroad, and Katie, actually, who wrote that letter, also went to Italy and studied abroad, and she sent me letters that I got to tell you, she's a very gifted writer, and she was back then, she wrote the best letters. And when she was in Italy, she would just write about these scenes, and I felt like I was there. They were so descriptive. And do you guys remember getting letters from people that were abroad or lived in other countries and it was written on like that, tissue paper, Air Mail, yes,

Kristin Nilsen 1:29:49

yes, with the red and yes,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:29:54

yes, because I guess the postage was, you know, the was dependent on the weight of the letter, so the lighter you could make. The letter, the better. And I just remember that feel of that tissue paper

Kristin Nilsen 1:30:04

ear mail that is a word that doesn't exist anymore.

Michelle Newman 1:30:08

And it made the whole experience of what they were doing, I didn't study abroad, but it made it just so much more magical and exotic. Yeah, good words. Well,

Carolyn Cochrane 1:30:19

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 going to 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 some 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 a margarita. So, Long Island, yeah, Long Island, feisty. So to have those now, and my dad had such distinguishable handwriting, ineligible, 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 seeing. 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. Yeah, well, it's

Michelle Newman 1:31:43

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 old little autograph book. Remember when we all carry little autograph books and we folded all the we folded all the pages in, and, you know, he wrote a page for me and and so I do have an example, a sample of his handwriting. And handwriting, you it, you can't minimize the importance of it. And we don't often have any more samples of handwriting at our ready, because kids

Kristin Nilsen 1:32:22

barely have a signature nowadays. That's what's going to have to be taught, is how to have a signature. Do

Carolyn Cochrane 1:32:27

they even have signed yearbooks anymore? I mean, I go back and look at my yearbooks, think about that all of our questions handwriting. And you know, even the guy that you were scared to talk to, you'd kind of slip your yearbook and hope that he wrote something like, maybe I'll see you this summer.

Kristin Nilsen 1:32:43

See ya this summer. 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 elusive. God, right?

Carolyn Cochrane 1:33:25

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

Kristin Nilsen 1:33:47

you have a little piece of him, yeah, how mundane it was. You have a little piece of his mundane life in your hand, 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 out.

Carolyn Cochrane 1:34:33

Where will the CO primary sources be? That's

Kristin Nilsen 1:34:36

right, 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 1:34:43

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

Kristin Nilsen 1:34:52

need the truthfulness that came with being one to one with that piece of paper, knowing that it was going to the singular person, that wasn't going to be broadcast. Us 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

Carolyn Cochrane 1:35:41

Facebook friends, handwritten letter you guys. And her name is Amy Wineland daughters 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, best 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 1:36:24

You know, you guys how 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. Oh, 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. I know I do yes

Carolyn Cochrane 1:36:47

for sure, and we are so grateful to all of you, all of our listeners, all of our followers,

Michelle Newman 1:36:53

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. And if you want to hear those voicemails, stick around after the closing, because we're going to play them. That's what we're going to

Carolyn Cochrane 1:37:10

do. Yes, and they're great to hear. They are all share your stories in your own words. There's nothing like it really. Yeah, they're

Michelle Newman 1:37:18

they're so fun. And today's episode was brought to you by Hallmark Mrs. Grossman. It was brought to you by Julie Angie, Melissa, Heather, Helene, Teresa, Liz, Emily, Melanie Jill, Diane, Colette Kelly, Sharon, Barbara, Charles Courtney and Ali

Carolyn Cochrane 1:37:42

those are just a few of our patrons and people who made one time donations. Is that right? Sorry, okay, and people who made one time donations on our PayPal site, we are so grateful for you all. It really does help us keep on trucking. 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.

Kristin Nilsen 1:38:12

In the meantime, let's raise our glasses for a toast, courtesy of the cast of Threes Company, two good times, two

Michelle Newman 1:38:19

Happy Days, to Little House

Carolyn Cochrane 1:38:21

on the Prairie where they wrote a lot of letters.

Michelle Newman 1:38:25

Cheers, cheers.