Feeling Guilty

After years of placing postcards on my Facebook page, sharing them with my friends, I actually feel guilty that I am unable to do so right now. A corrupt file in the memory disc causes my phone to freeze and I lost my Facebook app for now. I hope to get that back up and running soon.

The postcards that I have been sharing are from as far back as the early 1900’s to modern times. Some have the senders, their message, and the postmark of their sending date. It is great reading or trying to read the sometimes faded words on the backs. Many are souvenir cards, unsent and virginal, the inexpensive way of having souvenirs of times and places.

These cards came from stashes that my mother-in-law, Retha Morrison and from my mom, Sybil Beck kept over the years. From the two donors, I have a boot box filled to running over, probably one thousand of these memories. I have been dubbed as their keeper and I decided to post a different one each day, sharing the places and times with others, rather than allowing them to die a slow death, hidden away.

Cards or Valentine’s Day, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years are tucked among cards of local attractions, distant places, and of times of war. They share camps of soldiers, youth camps for Pittsburgh children, and cards collected from the times we camped out West. Some of the postcards are an artist’s rendering of the place, while others are crisp, clear photographs, sharing a true rendition of a place. They portray a vast panorama of deserts, mountains, cities, celebration, and people.

The great thing about postcards is that they are relatively inexpensive souvenirs and remembrances that quickly transport the reader and collector to another time and another world. They are easy to store and stir memories of a person’s past.