Things that used to be.....'The Post Card'

For those of you younger than, say........most of us, this is a picture of a 'Post Card'. Come on, say it with me....'post card'. Very good.

A post card was a form of communication used a long-long-long time ago.

It usually had a picture on one side (sometimes of a great vacation spot) and the other side was divided into two sections. The left hand section was used for writing a note of some kind. Something like "wish you were here", or "missing you", or some other short message. The right side was for the address of the recipient and the stamp.

People used post cards instead of letters for a number of reasons. Maybe you wanted to say 'hello' to someone, but didn't want to write an entire epistle. Maybe you only had enough money for a post card stamp, which was invariably cheaper than a stamp for a letter. Maybe you didn't really care who read your message, because, as you can see, there is NO privacy associated with a Post Card. Everyone, from the writer, to the mailman, to the nosy neighbor, to the recipient, can read whatever message is written there.

Whatever the reason, post cards used to be a very popular form of communication in the 'olden days' when I was young.

Why am I bringing this up?? Let me tell you a short story. I was at Target the other day. I was in the checkout line when this (older) man walked up and asked the (younger) cashier if they carried 'Post Cards'. She looked at him blankly before asking "What?" "Do you carry Post Cards?", he asked again. "Post...what?", was the reply. I jumped in to explain to her that a Post Card is like a card that you send somebody. You write a note on the back of it, then put it in the mail. She still looked pretty blank, but said, "Well, if we did have anything like that it would be over by the greeting cards." I saved the man the trouble of walking over there and told him that, NO, Target does not have post cards. Then I directed him to the only store in town that I know of that does carry them.

He went happily on his way. The cashier's face returned to it's previous unknowing, blank look. And I came home, wondering all the way about things that used to be.