Summertime and the livin is easy here in the foothills of the Alleghenies. The house is comfortable all the time without need for heating or cooling. The flowers just grow for ya. The porch just occasionally needs a little sweeping so stuff doesn't stick to your bare feet when you stroll out there for coffee in the misty morning before work. Life good.
I just got a couple of comments on a post from this blog from February 2004. In the post I had offhandedly mentioned the name of some kind of juvenile detention center where an old boyfriend had been some 25+ years ago. Yeah, cat always liked the bad boys. Anyhoo, apparently somebody is researching about a family member who had spent time there. Interesting nexus made possible by the interwebs. It inspired me to go hunt up some letters I've been saving from this guy. I should scan an post one. Clearly a creative and bright guy, like virtually all of my friends who have done time. Also now 25 years later it's a kick to see the references to what was current pop culture and news then. For example, one letter says "P.S. Write back quick and tell me something more about the airplane wreck on 14th Street bridge. I saw it on TV!" Remember that, or was that more of a local story for us DC-ites? I remember the Greaseman, shock jock on DC 101 at the time who frequently made fun of Marylou Retton, BTW, got kicked off the air for a week or 2 for calling the airline on the air and asking how much for a ticket from National Airport to the 14th Street Bridge. And this letter also has a cool little drawing of the dude in front of the big speaker whose sound is blowing him back in his easy chair (was it for Maxell?).
And this all brings me to wonder about technology's impact on things like archiving and saving old correspondence. These old letters, and others I have saved, could still conceivably be around for generations if they escape fire, flood, and clutter-clearing Scandinavian sparse design. But how much cool correspondence have I already completely lost through dead harddrives? Plenty. Well, plenty of correspondence, I don't know how much of it was actually all that cool. Certainly very little as cool as these letters with the cartoony drawings and scratchouts and whatnot on them. Handwritten. Actually touched by sender. What will the archives of my kids look like in 25 years? Will they even have any?