Pen Pals

Do you remember that lovely old-fashioned concept of putting pen to paper and writing out letters on those blue Air Mail forms you could buy from the post office? That was approximately a million years ago now, but did anybody ever have a pen pal?

I remember when I was a child of about 9 years old I had a pen-friend by the name of Mai Lei who lived in the then Malaya. We sent presents to each other as well and it was always lovely when a letter came from her. I'd spend hours writing her a reply.

Then in my early teens, I wrote to a boy who was a French Canadian whose English was poor, but he tried his best, and I also had a pen-friend in the USA called Waylon, or some such name.

With the Age of Technology of course very few write personal letters by hand, which I think is sad, but it's a sign of these times.

Re: Pen Pals

I think I was in sixth grade when our teacher announced we were going to all have pen pals as part of our geography project.

The very astute teacher matched me with a girl that was from Arizona and also had horses. Part of my lesson plan was to learn about, and then write about, the differences in horse-keeping from the lush green pastures of NE Ohio vs the hot-dry-arid desert environment of Arizona.

We wrote back and forth for a year, maybe a little more, then just faded away.

Does anybody still write "Thank you" notes or has that all been moved to Facebook (which I can't stand) or e-thank you cards

I'm all for technology; it was of immense help when I worked. I like my cell phone, even though I don't twitter and only recently put "pay-as-you-texting" back on so I can talk more to my "baby" brother who lives 11 hours away and has a very busy life.

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i had penpals when i was at school but it all died out...ive had quite a few email penpals and after a while a few stopped replying... i have four at the moment who i keep in touch with....all who ive met on line and one i met through the yours magazine...its nice being in touch with people but i do miss mail..it isnt the same with emails and my handwriting has gone down hill!!!!

re thankyou cards yes i still send those but i think thats mainly because i make my own cards...

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I think the concept is still alive and well, it's just the method of delivery that's changed. When we we used to eagerly await the thrill of receiving and opening a hand written missive, now we just await the "Ping" of an e-mail arriving, but I don't think we communicate any less, do we?

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I had a pen pal but it didn't last for long, it took too long writing in French that I got bored.
I don't like hand writing letters, prefer to do them on computer and print them off. I think it's the content of the letter which is important not the form.

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I joined what was supposed to be a pen pal forum, to find invitations to France for holidays to a married man that wanted a friend but his wife and daughter would not be happy if they found out, hmmm wonder why. I have given up on that idea. I have Skype on my computer and made the whole thing private to family and friends only to end up getting invites to marry people overseas. I give up!

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Never had a pen pal, but I certainly wrote letters to friends. Re the "thank you" note, it does seem to be fading out but I have to say I think that is just bad manners. It appalls me that my two nephews, now 16 and 18, never once wrote to thank me for birthday presents. Our parents brought us up to write thank you notes, but it seems my sister has not bothered to instill the same standards in her children.I don't care if it is by email, or even text, but I object to never having gifts even acknowledged. (They don't get them any more...)

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I used to have two pen pals whilst at school, one in Holland and one in Italy but we lost touch when our schooldays were over.

Regarding thank you letters .... yes I still send them, old habits die hard I am pleased to say my grandchildren have always sent me thank you letters or cards..... right from a very young age when they used to copy a couple of words that their Mum had written for them to copy onto a piece of paper.

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I agree with you orangutan, I get so angry when I have to bombard my son with messages asking if the money or gift I sent for my young grandson arrived. I have to send everything to my son's address, he and my grandson's mother are divorced and for some reason, I don't know what, his ex wife, who is a barrister, cut me off as well. My son either takes the gifts to his ex wife's house or gives them to his son when he is with him. Usually after about 3 months I am lucky if I get a simple "thank you" via facebook.

I have two penfriends in USA, 1 in Canada and 1 in Japan apart from birthdays and Christmas we communicate via the computer but all gifts etc are immediately acknowledged.

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I had two penpals when I was in secondary school, one in America and one in France. Lots of us had them back then but the contact just gradually slows down and then stops. Its nice to keep in touch with people from around the world and I don't think it really matters whether is electronic mail or pen and ink mail. It's correspondence just the same.

As for thank-you notes, I've always used them and I brought my children up to use them and now my grandchildren use them - even if they are now email thank-yous or text message thank-yous, they're still thank-yous.