The Friday Five (on Saturday)

1) Do you enjoy letter writing [as in snail mail]? When's the last time that you wrote someone a letter or a note? When's the last time that you received something in the mail from someone [not including regular stuff like bills, junk mail, etc.]?

I actually do. I prefer to type the letters nowadays though. I sent notes to a few folks this past month. I actually received something in yesterday's mail that was real mail. (Family historians like myself do tend to write and send letters more often. Even though we do send a lot of email, there's still plenty of cause for use of the US Postal Service.

2) Do you plan to send out holiday cards this year? Why/why not? Do you spend a lot of time on them? About how many holiday cards do you usually send each year?

Yes. I love receiving them myself. It's also the only contact I have each year with some people. I used to spend more time than I do now. I write a newsletter to insert in each one now and write personal notes on a few. I sent about 75 last year.

3) Have you ever had a penpal? Where and when? How long did you write to them, or are you still in contact with them? What kinds of things did/do you talk about with them? How did your penpal relationship come about?

I had several back when I was in junior high/high school. Most of them were folks I met when I was at church camp of some sort. We used to attend a family camp in Oklahoma each year. I wrote to friends in Tennessee, Florida, Arkansas, and Texas from that. From my church camp in Mississippi, I had a couple of good pen pals. However, the most enduring pen pal relationship was with a friend I met while camping. I don't even remember exactly where we were camping when we met. It may have been in Alabama, but I'm not positive. However, we kept writing. She lived in South Carolina. We kept writing through college. (She attended Air Force Academy in Colorado.) We even wrote a bit after that. Now we are down to exchanging cards.

4) Do you feel that you have good penmanship? Did you ever have to take a handwriting class in school? Do you prefer typing letters or writing them by hand? Have you ever had yourhandwriting analyzed?

My penmanship varies in quality. I can write neatly, but I can write sloppily. No handwriting classes besides the usual teaching kids to write in elementary school. I love handwritten letters, but I prefer to type them. My cousin's wife analyzed it once years ago.

5) If you could receive a personal, hand-written letter from anyone in the world right now, who would you choose and why? Why would you want a letter from him/her?

Wow - that's a tough one, but it would be someone in the family or a friend. How about all my friends and family send me a letter, and then I'll decide which one I liked best? LOL