LETTER FROM AROUND THE WORLD

The postcard below, I received in 1997 from my Grandma June.  There were a few times when she escaped the harsh Wisconsin winters and visited friends in Arizona.  In this postcard, Grandma June is visiting the Grand Canyon and wrote:

                  Hi Maria, A teenager threw his tennis shoe into the canyon and you couldn’t 
                  even see where it landed.  Love Grandma

POSTCARD FROM GRANDMA JUNE 1997

She was my first pen pal and I would wager that I have had an average of at least one to four pen pals at various times for the last 15 years of my life.  Even though the letters I received from my Grandma were usually on the short side, I was always excited to receive something in the mail.  I believe there is something timeless about writing a letter to person and then waiting days or weeks for them to receive it.  It reminds me of the early settlers leaving behind European roots for the New World and to never to return home, only through the words on paper that they sent across the ocean hoping it would make it to the hands of their loved ones.

With internet and text messaging and all other technological ways we communicate that are usually fast and quick ways to talk with our friends down the block or in another country.  I often use the powers of modern communication myself, but when you take the time to construct a hand written letter to a specific loved one, you tend to put more thought into your words.  For example when you are texting someone it is a ongoing conversation constantly going back and forth, where you both keep responding to the others remarks and most likely in incomplete sentences and using an acronyms, such as LOL.  A letter starts off as a one sided conversation where you are composing your thoughts and ideas to a friend in the hopes that they will respond back with their own words and thoughts.   

When browsing at your local book store you will sometime come across books such as Letter of Ernest Hemingway.  You can still find entire books completely based on letter from famous writers, such as Virginia Woolf and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and collection of condolence letters that Abraham Lincoln wrote during the Civil War. When old letters of historical figures are discovered we get a small glimpse into the thoughts and emotions of the actual person and not just what has been written in history books.  I often wonder if someday in the near future there will be electronic books called Text Messages of Love: Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie or Famous Tweets of Barack Obama.
 

I have corresponded with friends and family members across the United States and around the world.  While my good friend Angela was in the Peace Corps in Costa Rica I had to write her letters to communicate with her.  Since she was in a small village, that did not have a strong internet connection this was our main source of communication for those two years.  I remember I sent her a care package once and included a tea sampler.  She wrote back that her host family, whom she was staying with, had never seen so many different types of teas before. 

DINOSAURS I-10 CABAZON, CALIFORNIA 2013

My longest correspondence has been with my friend, Brittany, who was fellow Co-President of College Feminist at UWM when I was undergraduate.  She has been living out in San Francisco for about ten years now and we are still writing letters to each other every few months.  Talking about books we have read, dreams of finding a new jobs, trying to start families, and many other subjects. 

TONGARIRO NATIONAL PARK, NEW ZEALAND

My friend Katie Mac, is currently living in Wellington, New Zealand, the land of Hobbits.  She sends me cards with the breath taking views of that island country.  A few winters ago, Katie Mac described having a BBQ in 80 degree weather on Christmas day, while I was dealing the cold and dark winters of Wisconsin.  It felt like she was living it up in King’s Landing and I was trapped in Winterfell.  I have now mixed both Lord of the Rings and A Game of Thrones references into the same paragraph making it official that I am a nerd when it comes to fantasy adventure books and movies.   

To conclude, I know many of you are sending out Christmas cards to your family and friends in the last few weeks, which is wonderful.  However, I would really recommend sending letters to those you love through-out the year.  I know it’s a lot easier to “like” someone’s profile picture on Facebook, but it means so much more to send that person a letter in the mail.  I know that the letters people have sent me over the years have meant so much to me and I continue to do my best to write them back. 

LIBRARY REVIEW: East Branch

THE GRAND OPENING ON NOVEMBER 22, 2014

I have been a lover of libraries for many years now.  One of my favorite Disney moment was in Beauty and the Beast, when Beast shows Belle his private library and she exclaims, "I have never seen so many books in my entire life."  There is something wonderful being surrounded by shelves filled with books. I love being in a large room with other readers and you are all in this quite peaceful space. Everyone, head is in a book, in worlds of your own imaginations, but we are still sharing the joy of reading which floats in the air.  I have explored many of the libraries in the Milwaukee County system.  For this week blog I thought I review the re-opening of the East Side Library, which they now call the East Branch.  Or was it always called the East Branch?  I'm not sure if I just referred to it as the East Side location in the past.  They completely destroyed the old library and they rebuilt a new building and now there are condos on the upper floors of the library.

The new library has a very modern look about it and it has it's very own fireplace.  They have large windows that give a good view of North Avenue and Bean's & Barely, a local restaurant across the street.  They have a small room for  silent study.  There was a descant amount of people hanging out on the Saturday afternoon, when I decided to visit. There is a children area, which includes a dry erase board that they can draw on, which is pretty cute.  There is a conference space area, you will view this when first entering the library.  Ashley came here a different day and said they were holding a meeting in this location.

CHILDREN AREA

CONFERENCE SPACE

I would have thought the library would have been bigger.  Ashley, mentioned to me that she expected there to be more books.  And I agree there did not seem to be as many rows of book shelves as I would have hoped for.  They may have thought about making the library two floors giving more room for extra books and more desks for college students to work at.  However, I did notice they had laptops that you could check out and use inside the library, which is really nice.  Many of us have are own personal computers and other electronic devices, that we forget some people depend on the library to gain free access to computers and the Internet.  Overall, I did enjoy the time I spent reading in this library and hope to make it back there soon. 

READING BOSSYPANTS WHILE SITTING BY THE FIRE