Viva Snail Mail!

My Grandpa Sidney Lohman was an avid stamp collector. When he passed away my dad and I weren’t quite sure what to do with his vast collection. One option is to share it with you by regularly posting highlights from Grandpa’s collection on this blog. My dad, Phil Lohman, will serve as contributing stamp curator. In honor of the hometown of Viva Snail Mail! we present to you these Brooklyn Bridge stamps from 1983, commemorating the bridge’s 100th anniversary. 

Note the cartoon character, Mr. Zip, on the right side of the stamp sheet. He was created by the Postal Service in the 1960’s to encourage people to include zip codes on their correspondence. 

Speaking of letters to Obama, McSweeney’s and 826 National published a book of kids’ letters to the President. They are pretty excellent.

Kids reading their letters to Obama

“He chooses 10 letters, which are slipped into a purple folder and put in the daily briefing book that is delivered to President Obama at the White House residence. Designed to offer a sampling of what Americans are thinking, the letters are read by the president, and he sometimes answers them by hand, in black ink on azure paper.”

Picking Letters, 10 a Day, That Reach Obama

Thank you people for all the excellent feedback. Hopefully this blog will inspire us to get back into the habit of sending off paper mail on the regular. A few future posts are about beautiful cards made by artists and crafters, books about correspondence, an interview with a postcard collector, tips on how to get your correspondence gear in order, philatelic (that’s stamps for those of you who didn’t have a stamp collecting grandpa) appreciation, info about the world of mail art, and letter writing. And of course, there will be a steady flow of images.

At some point, around the turn of the 21st century, the steady flow of sent and received postcards and letters to and from friends and family, slowed to a trickle. My dad, who I fondly call the Clipping King, bless his heart, continued to send me paper ephemera of interest. But the other occasional paper mail that I would receive- a postcard from a friend on vacation, a holiday greeting, a thank you note, could not compete with the volume and variety of mail I was sending and receiving on my computer. Email was so easy! So instant! I didn’t even need to find a stamp! 

I may be prone to nostalgia, but I am no Luddite. I love the internet. And email. And Facebook. And my cell phone.

But paper mail- nothing compares to you. We can bring you back. We can make room for you in our electronic lives. Viva Snail Mail!

Tell them Sinead.