You Never Call, You Never Write

I was just watching a little clip on my favorite news source (besides wikipedia) cnn.com about things that have become obsolete in recent years. They listed things like dial-up internet, phone calls (welcome to the world of texting, people!) and catologs (um, love a good catalog. what's wrong with them?). The item listed that I found the most objectionable is letter writing.

Yes, I'm aware that letter writing has been a passtime in decline for several years now. I've been thinking about this a lot. When is the last time you wrote someone a letter (not counting your Christmas greetings)? I love me a good letter, but I rarely write them. Also I rarely get them. What crappy friends you are! Mostly we instant message, text, and write on MyFace walls. Emails aren't even necessarily that common anymore, with the exception of work communications. I cannot get some of my teenagers that I volunteer with to answer me when I email them to save my life.

I feel like we need to revive the art of letter-writing somehow. We could call it retro and that'll make it hip.

I've recently been looking through some old family letters. Back in the day, it used to be cool (at least among the Mormons, not sure about everyone else) to exchange family chain letters on a frequent basis updating everyone on what your family is up to. I think the idea was you would mail on your letter as well as everyone before yours to the next person, and at some point it would start over or something? I'm not smart enough to figure it out right now. That sounds like it might work. You should try it. I guess maybe the whole aforementioned mommyblogger trend is our generation's answer to those letters. I'm all for a good update on the kids. I have my own little cuties that I look forward to reading posts about. But there's a certain romance, a certain intimacy to letters. What about that? Where are my little kid scribbles about what they got for christmas and why their sister bugs them? 'Cause we got 'em back in the day. Oh, yes, my family got 'em. Does your family, now? I didn't think so. 'Cause your kids aren't blogging. Yet.