As I have mentioned on this thread, in 1981, I took the train across the country, by myself, from Oakland, CA to Philadelphia. My mother had died about nine months previously, and I was 11 years old. I visited my mother's uncle and his wife on that trip, (Iz and Betty) in Mystic Isles, New Jersey, and recently, one of Iz and Betty's sons gave me a note that I wrote while I was there. Evidently Betty kept it, bless her soul, and someone found it while going through her papers after she passed away.

It is written in the sloppy handwriting of an 11-year old, in my pretentious style (yes, foreshadowing, I know) on a yellowing piece of binder paper. By format, it looks just like a letter. It is short, so here is the text:

**
To Whom it May Concern:

I, the undersigned, hereby give permission to Betty Sachs to dump cold water on my head on the night of Aug 29, 1981 under the following conditions: It has to be between the times of 10:50 pm and 11:00 pm and she has to have tried to awake me in other fashions such as shaking me. If I am not awake after a good steady shake for at least five minutes, then and only then may she pour cold water on me.

Signed,
Joaquin Hartman
**

I have no recollection of writing this but it is quite obviously from me, and I have no idea why I wanted to be awoken at that specific time. My first guess was that a San Francisco Giants game was on and would be starting at 10:30 pm eastern. Through the magic of the internet, it took me about 20 seconds to find out that the Giants beat the Pirates 8-3 that day. But then I noticed it was a Saturday and therefore highly unlikely that it was a night game. What else could it have been? I looked at Wikipedia for the day and saw nothing that I would have wanted to be woken up for. So it's a mystery to me. But I love the fact that Betty saved the note and then someone else saved it from the garbage heap.

All this got me thinking about letters. The last time I hand-wrote (or even typed) a personal letter (not a thank you or birthday or condolence card) must have been at least 14 years ago. It is a nearly-dead form of correspondence, and that is sad. A blog, tweet, or facebook post can never quite capture the physicality and the "in the moment permanence" of a letter, and it seems there is no going back.

What if we got a movement going (spread by facebook and twitter, natch) to get all of our friends and family to hand-write one personal letter per year? No cards allowed, we are talking a bonafide letter; no word processing, just a pen and paper. And I don't mean one letter to each friend or family member, I am talking one letter, to one person, per year. Too much to ask?