The Hand Written Letter

This week I received a five-page hand written letter from my youngest brother.  I left home to join the Navy right after my 17^th birthday.  He was just a baby then.  We have never lived in the same part of the country and have not spent a lot of time together over the years.  I haven’t talked to him in about a year or so and it was really a pleasant surprise to get this letter.  The entire letter was written in cursive, in ink, and with no cross outs.  I’m not sure I can even write in cursive anymore and I’m sure I couldn’t write five pages without a mistake (Oh and by the way these pages were the old full size notebook pages).  My youngest daughter also sent me a very nice thank you note for helping her move to New Orleans.  It was also hand written and really meant a lot to me.  I guess this was my lucky week for getting meaningful letters.

The written letter has become a thing of the past.  The last time I can remember writing a full letter by hand was when I was in the Navy.  Not much to do on those long nights at sea.  I’m currently reading “Nelson’s Trafalgar” by Roy Adkins, which is a book about the battle of Trafalgar.  This battle was fought at sea between the British and the combined fleet of France and Spain.  The British overwhelmingly won the battle and prevented Napoleon from invading Great Britain.  This account of the battle and everything that happened before and after this important event comes mostly from letters written by people there.  Some of these are official letters, but many are personal letters written to family members and friends.  These letters not only give a detailed account as to what happened before, during, and after the battle but also give an insight into the mindset of the people involved.  Will future generations be able to get this type of insight from our current day methods of communications?  I have my doubts.

When I first started out in sales I used to hand write and send out thank you notes to customers and potential customers.  Over the years I changed from this approach to sending email thank you notes.  I really don’t think it has the same effect that a hand written note does.  If you really want to thank someone, the hand written letter is much better than an email or even a phone call.  I think I’m going to make it a point to try to start writing letters and thank you notes and sending them via snail mail.

Until next time,

“I put a piece of paper under my pillow, and when I could not sleep I wrote in the dark.” –Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)