The Good Ole Days

Stamps, Friendship Books, and Real Letters

I loved pen friends. I wrote to hundreds of people through the USPS, and every trip to the mailbox felt like opening a door to the world. Friendship books were my favorite. You’d fill out a little page with your name, age, interests, and address, then mail it off and wait for it to come back full of new names. That’s how I met people. No profiles, no apps — just paper and a stamp.

I had friends from all over the U.S and abroad. There was Oliver from Ireland who wrote about rainy days and music. There was Barbara Smith from Philadelphia who talked about Awake! magazine and would send me little clippings she thought I’d like. There was Lisa from Bremerton, Washington, who had the neatest handwriting and always used heart stickers to seal her envelopes.

And then there was Barbara Hayes, my dear friend who recently died. We didn’t just write — we actually met. I spent the summer in Fortville, Indiana with her. We stayed up late talking like we’d known each other forever, because on paper, we had. She’d saved every letter I sent her, tied with ribbon in a shoebox. That’s what we did back then. We kept things.

It was just innocence and simple fun to get real letters. You’d recognize the handwriting before you even saw the return address. You’d sit down with a pen and answer questions, share your week, draw in the margins. No one was trying to be clever or curated. We were just trying to connect.

The USPS carried friendships across states and oceans for me. It taught me patience, it taught me to listen, and it taught me that someone’s story could show up in your mailbox any day if you were open to it. I miss that world sometimes. The quiet of it. The wait of it. The joy of unfolding four pages from someone who chose to write you back.