The Lost Art of Letter Reading

I was poking around the U.S. Census Bureau web site today, and noticed a August 14 announcement by the bureau that said, "Shortly after 2:29 p.m. EDT today, the U.S. population clock... will show there are 314,159,265 residents, or pi times 100 million... 'This is a once in a many generations event, so go out and celebrate this American pi,' said Census Bureau Chief Demographer Howard Hogan."

Today I also had a small amount of business to do at one of those endangered entities, a post office. I parked near another car, and inside the car sat a woman intently reading a long, handwritten letter. She must have just picked up some mail at her p.o. box, maybe something she was expecting and really wanted to read. Or maybe it was a surprise -- a letter from someone she hadn't seen in years.

How long will it be before no one sits in public reading freshly opened mail? Occasionally I saw that in college, people sitting on benches near the entrance of the campus p.o. with their mail from home or old friends. Visiting the post office was a daily thing for most people, me included, and pretty much everyone liked getting mail. The (lame) joke on my freshman hall that described getting no mail that day was, "I got air mail."

How long will it be before no one, while visiting far away countries, sits on a bench to rest and compose a post card or even a letter? I couldn't have been the only one to do that. The one I remember most fondly was a letter to a girl I'd recently met, which I wrote sitting on a bench on the terraced grounds of Schönbrunn Palace, with the summer sun above, a light but constant wind blowing, and a panoramic view of the palace below me. Who's going to ever be nostalgic about sitting around Schönbrunn sending text messages?

Items From the Past: Central Europe, November 1994

November was a fine month to be in Central Europe, at least in the immediate post-communist years. It wasn't any colder than in the Midwest and various places that would be awash with visitors in summer were a lot quieter, and probably somewhat cheaper.

Toward the beginning of the month, we were in southern Poland. Near Krakow is the Wieliczka Salt Mine. The "Underground Salt Cathedral of Poland" is a place of gray salt walls, sculptures and other artwork made of salt, and a considerable history in providing a formerly very valuable commodity. This exterior shot hardly does the place justice, but then again my snapshot from inside would do it even less justice.

This is a fall scene from Prague: the Old Jewish Cemetery, a burial ground from the 15th to the 18th centuries. It amazed me that this place survived the Nazis, but it did, and contains thousands of stones and countless other burial sites, including that of Rabbi Loew. The picture isn't his headstone, but of someone else whose identity can be known to readers of Hebrew.

Finally, here's an image from Vienna, that storied imperial capital with no more empire to preside over. We were fortunate indeed to be there for the annual Autohochhaltend Sängerfest. Choirs from all over Austria come to sing while cars were lifted in artful ways. I'd say there's no other festival quite like it anywhere. I managed to get a pic of some car-lifting, but unfortunately none of the singers.