The typed and the printed and the spelt all wrong

I was out to dinner with a friend recently who mentioned that she was looking for pen pals for her son as "he needs work on his penmanship." I was really overjoyed to hear this, not because I delighted in her child having poor penmanship, but because I at times despair that I'm the only person left who finds penmanship and letter writing worthy of consideration.

Growing up, I regularly had pen pals my age, and loved writing and receiving letters. This was right before the Internet took over all forms of communication, and before cellular phone companies made long distance charges all but obsolete. If you had a friend in another city or state, you were still best off keeping in touch via written letter.

Despite the ubiquity of Internet communications, I'm always on the lookout for the opportunity to write letters. When a good friend taught English in Japan for a year, we exchanged letters regularly. When I lived in Bangladesh, I wrote letters at least twice a week.

What's so great is, letter writing is an opportunity to give someone a gift. Who doesn't like to open the mailbox and see a hand addressed envelope with a letter inside? And it's so much more personal to receive a hand written missive than a three word SMS.

I once wrote an extensive letter to a film historian, a few of whose books I had just read, and received in reply a lengthy handwritten letter and a photograph of the author with John Wayne! Daniel Clowes sent me a postcard in reply. In college, I wrote a letter to my favorite author at the time, Haruki Murakami, and received, several weeks later, a letter from his assistant informing me that Mr. Murakami did not answer interviews. In a fit of rejection, I threw the letter away - a move I have regretted ever since.

For Christmas this year, I received a new fountain pen. I have a small collection of fountain pens that belonged to my Grandfather and Great Grandfather that my Grandmother gave me a few years ago. I treasure them, of course, and it's nice to add one of my own to the collection. Besides, there's nothing like sucking the ink up into a new pen and setting it to paper. I immediately went out and bought a new box of stationery, and look forward to a new year filled with new opportunities to write.