May I Have This Post?

Is Your Post Card Filled?

Value and Romance on a Small Bit of Paper

You see them around all over the place, now mostly in tourist travelled trading places, guest shops, souvenir shops, and landmarks and you might have heard people telling you to send in a card with your name, address and current phone number to various places. (image to right -- image from Image*After¹) Of course you have seen the business reply cards in magazines and as warranty registration cards. Of course I am talking about postcards -- something that has been with us for over a century now. They officially came into being in 1861 -- developed by John P. Charlton from Philadelphia who transferred his copyright to H.L. Lipman -- "Lipman's Postal Card, Patent Applied For". Governments took over, including exclusive right to call them "Postcards" in 1893.

What is the value of a postcard? They are a very simple way to send a message by post for one thing and often they can be sent at a lower price than a regular letter. Today the cost to mail one is not too much different from a letter and of course anyone can read what is written on them. My Mom used to say that the person on vacation sending you a postcard -- or post card -- most often already had returned home by the time it reaches its recipient because each person in the post office who handles it take a moment to read it.

(images above from A Brief History of Post Cards²)

I imagine there are no secrets in a post card... unless you put it into an envelope or parcel or deliver it by hand.

But postcards have something special to them, mailed or not. In picking out a postcard to send someone, you are in a foreign location perhaps, maybe on vacation, maybe on business, but taking a few moments out of your day to think of others. I am getting away from the business sorts, like business reply mail and warranty cards here. They also are something from that place although it is possible to order postcards of exotic locations from the comfort of your home. A person might take their own photographs and write something on the back of them as mementos to send or keep, but still there is an interesting feeling with postcards.

Postcards historically are of values in that they capture a bit of a time and place and sometimes sentiment and feeling of that time. They trace the progress of a community with their snapshots of buildings and roads. Even showing one thing they often show others. A shot of a building might also show cars and people in it and give a glimpse at how they lived. If you look at a postcard from two different periods you might see how telegraph wires were added to be replaced by telephone wires to be replaced by underground wiring.

Postcards could be "wishes" of places a person wanted to visit or things they wanted to purchase or they might be telling of where they finally got or what they got. Businesses have often created PR with postcards and often very artistic ones.

You can find Canada's official Postcard Barrel at the Port Moody Station Museum. Deposit or pick up unstamped postcards during Museum open hours for hand delivery around the world.

Some subjects of postcards: Distant places, Architecture, Vacation Destinations, Advertisements, Street Scenes, Artwork, Landmarks, Cities, Towns, Wars, Heroes, Events,  Politics, Celebrities, and probably other subjects.

Our museum -- The Port Moody Station Museum³ (image to right) -- has a "Postcard Barrel" which is Canada's Official Postcard Barrel! I know there is one on the Galapagos Islands as well. They are an odd sort of thing, you drop a post card into it that you want sent somewhere in the world and people visiting have a look through and pick out ones close to where they are going and hand-deliver them. (see inset left)

You can always send an email, or take a picture to share, or buy postcards to take with you and give to friends -- but to mail it from afar, where it takes on a postal cancellation stamp, and perhaps a local stamp as well, and travel through the postal system until it reaches a friend's home and hand -- that ads something special and romantic to the whole thing. It is a bit more than a photo or a letter. It is a special souvenir not only of a place, but a time and a person.

Later!
~ Darrell

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¹ Image*After Unattributed images from Image*After.

² "A Brief History of Postcard Types" Stefano Neis - Yahoo! GeoCities/Heartland/Meadows.

³ "The Port Moody Station Museum" 2734 Murray Street, Port Moody, BC

"Why Use A Postcard" Anders Eriksson - Post Cards usinfo.info

"History of Postcards" Emotions Greeting Cards.

Blinders - To See or Not to See

Today's Fashion Frames -- Glasses Bring Focus

Perhaps I am old-fashioned, but I like my peripheral vision. That is your ability to see things to the side of you while looking straight ahead. It helps you avoid people running lights or climbing into your blind spot while driving and enhances your shoulder checks. It also lets you know when someone has come up beside you when it is too noisy to hear them. Peripheral vision does that sort of thing for you.

(Reading glasses -- image to right from Image*After)

But looking at fashionable frames on the typical glasses I see more and more people wearing I see frames with temples that seem to block most peripheral vision except maybe from gophers and pigeons sideswiping you. Temples -- by the way - are the side arms of the glasses that go from the hinge part back and over the ears. My Mom worked for an optometrist and glasses manufacturing company for a while and she passed on some of those terms to me.

For myself I have gone to thinner and thinner temples and thinner frames. My frames are a bit ancient... I guess not too many are wearing glasses from the 20th century... and have metal frames all around the lenses and metal temples. I am wearing them in many of my biography pictures I have in my columns. Mine aren't as frameless as the ones above and to the right.

The ones I see more and more often on office people, news reporters, and fashion conscious folk are like the ones to the left. (image to left -- image from iOffer). I do admit they can look sharp. Sometimes they seem a bit odd when the lenses are frameless and have these massive wide temples. They can almost look like the person isn't wearing glasses at all, just the wide dark temples sticking forward from their ears like errant combs or pens.

Still I wonder at how much peripheral vision they remove. I do see from my looking for example photos of the wide templed glasses that the narrow templed ones are still there and still stylish enough. That is a relief for I fear my old faithful frames should likely be replaced soon.

But I wonder... are those blinders good or bad... are there so many distractions in the workplace that people need blinders so that they can focus on their work and the job at hand? Perhaps with a cellphone in one hand and a latte in the other while walking to the subway -- I hope not while driving -- they need a way to focus on the sidewalk ahead with fewer distractions. Just like the draft horses of the past...

Later!
~ Darrell

132.

Is it Magic?

Is Reading Magic?

You might not know the sound of my voice, but you know what I am saying. You would be able to repeat my words to another even if you had never met me. If you are reading these words 200 years after I have passed on from this mortal realm, you would still be able to hear what I have said. You could paint them on canvas, carve them into wood, scratch them into stone, itch them into skin... and still the words could be passed on and heard by others so long as they know the "magic of reading".

...and of course understand English or something equivalent.

I would say it is something pretty magical. We could be sitting -- or standing -- here communicating, by me having recited this into a microphone and recording it as an mp3 file or podcast and you playing my spoken words, but that would require some sort of technology to duplicate. If you print this on paper you can carry it with you and anyone who can see and read English will be able to understand it simply by looking at it -- anyone who understands this magic.

It strikes home with me at times more strongly than others. I researched "runes" -- the primitive letter system used by cultures such as the Norse -- in local and university libraries and one of the articles referred to runic writing found in Kiev. This was the ancient city of Kiev from a time when it was inhabited in part by Norse Traders before 1000 AD. There were bits of writing found on scraps of bark which were found in odd places where they might have been lost or stuck. Places like where they might have gotten between floorboards in wood walkways or in cracks in walls. I am not talking about ancient scrolls here. What struck me was that some were notes saying such things as "pick up three eggs on the way home" or "meet me after class" or "I like Ivan. He is cute." -- things that you might find on notes in any school child's pocket today... or do they only "text" now? I can not remember the exact content of the few notes that they made example of as it was over 20 years ago, but could find it probably. What was said in the article in "Scientific American" (Probably from the 1980's) was that this showed the people used runic writing in their everyday lives.

What I want to say with this is that when we read this -- or could if we were runic readers and understood the language of the Kievian Norse traders -- we are reading the words of a parent or child from over 2000 years ago! ...not some priestly incantation on a pyramid or other monument, but from the scraps of bark from a child's pocket.

We might do a lot with computers like here on the Internet -- I really love using my notebook computer, for instance -- and I would like to get an eBook reader of some sort and perhaps an even more portable way to take notes and write* -- but I can take a book anywhere and read it so long as there is light for my eyes and the environment wouldn't harm the paper. (Reading in swimming pools can be hard on books.) But I don't need a "reader" to read a book once it has been printed.

Reading and writing are very important arts and to someone who does not know how to read, must be a bit like magic. I think to a primitive culture that isn't literate, reading and writing would indeed be "Magic" as much as anything else could be. It is a magic that can be learned and taught of course.

It is also a magic that can open whole worlds!

Later!
~ Darrell

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* Notepads and pencils are wonderful and portable and while I do use them, I have problems with handwriting due to learning disorders and so I tend to rely on typing and other methods of writing that take handwriting out of the equation. I would rather use a trusty notepad when out and about.