Something

important is

lost with e-mail

A young friend of mine has headed off to summer camp. She'll be gone for a couple of weeks, and it's been suggested she might like to receive some mail.

The thought of mail at summer camp brings back happy memories. 

There's nothing like having your name pronounced in front of all the other campers during "mail call." That's how it was done at the camps I attended.

For a brief moment, mail recipients had status. Everybody wanted to know who the letter or package was from, and, more importantly, whether you had received something edible you were willing to share.

My parents were reliable correspondents. They grew up in a time when everybody wrote letters, so it was second nature to them.

My mom would write sweet notes on plain stationary about what every family member down to the dog was doing while I was away.

The letters from my father, a newspaper editor, were different.

He complained that his handwriting was illegible so he typed.  

He used long sheets of what was known as "copy paper," the same stuff that newspapers are printed on and what everybody in newsrooms used before computers came along.

He was an imaginative writer whose subjects ranged far and wide. As I read his lengthy letters, I could imagine him sitting in his home office late at night.

On a typical day, he would have worked until time to come home for dinner. After we all ate together, it was his habit to take an hour's nap.

Then he would be up until the wee hours. Perhaps it wasn't a healthy practice, but he was a night owl. If he didn't have something to write, like a long letter to a child at camp, he would engross himself in a good book. He often read whole books in one sitting.  

If he were writing, there next to his typewriter would be an ashtray holding a cigarette with a column of smoke rising above it. He might not smoke much of it, but he couldn't type a word unless it was lit.

I didn't think this way at the time, but I'm sure those letters helped me have a good time while I was away. I could read them, imagine my parents just as I'd left them, and feel secure.

Sometimes even my brother or sister would write, although they often were at camp with me, and that was even better.

At home we were often fighting. When we were away, we were grateful to catch glimpses of one another.

Some summers I spent six or seven different weeks at a variety of camps, usually related to 4-H.

I was a city kid, but my mom had a 4-H background, and she was determined that her children would have those experiences, too. So she founded the "Friday Firecrackers," a club on Charleston's West Side.

We didn't raise hogs or plant corn, but we could take on other 4-H projects, like cooking and sewing. The highlight of the year, and the main reason to be in 4-H, was camp.

I loved camp, even though I remember clearly that there were good and bad aspects.

Campfire circles were good. Field activities in the hot sun were not so good.

Dining hall food was mediocre at best, and bunkhouse showers were disgusting. Swimming was good, and a better way to stay clean.

Perhaps the best aspect was the friendships. If I run into a fellow camper these days, there's an instant kinship even though several decades have passed.  

I don't go to camp anymore, but I still like to receive mail.

However, I am almost always disappointed when I reach into the box. Rarely is there an actual letter from a human being written just to me. And nobody sends me "care packages" full of treats.

A saintly cousin has been a faithful correspondent for years, but even she has started using e-mail.

Long letters cause me to kick off my shoes and curl up in a comfortable chair. I have a hard time getting around to long e-mails.    

Recently the Daily Mail carried a feature story about some old portraits kept by the state Division of Archives and History. In a bygone era, the artists apparently made careers of capturing images in oil on canvas.  

It's not that people stopped liking oil paintings. But cameras were invented, and over time they got better, less expensive and easier to use. Hand-painted portraits weren't needed.

The same thing is happening to letters. Everybody still likes them. We just don't need them as much, and there are faster alternatives.

Surely the day is not far off when kids will pack up their iPhones or iPads along with their bug spray and swimsuits to take to camp. Technology will be so much a part of all our lives that no one will think twice about it.

In the 1960s, after all, I took a camera to camp, not canvas and easel.

Eventually there may be no need for "mail call."

Fortunately, that day has not yet arrived. So I will put pen to paper and write my young friend a long, old-fashioned letter.

Friend is editor and publisher of the Daily Mail. She may be reached at 348-5124 or na...@dailymail.com.