I no longer run for the mail the way I used to. I remember, prior to the e-mail age, the sense of heightened expectation as the hour of mail delivery approached, wondering what slender , handwritten treasures would appear in my box. I once received a letter from a long-lost friend and swelled with such joy that I ran the mail carrier down and shook his hand, as if he had done a heroic deed in conveying the missive to me. I first learned to love the mail as a young boy. The first thing I ever received that was personally addressed to me was from my friend Duane. We had been the closest of 9-year-old boys. Then he moved away, to Massachusetts. The parting was difficult, but boys didn't cry. Within the week, however, there was a letter in my mailbox. It was from Duane, and it read, "I'm OK, but I miss you." That first conveyance to me of a written word from a great distance had all the significance of the first Morse code message: "What hath God wrought." It was at that moment that I became a letter writer, quickly discovering that the more letters I wrote, the more I received. I wrote letters through elementary school, high school, college, and beyond. It got to the point where I could comfortably expect to receive a letter a day. _ - something toward which my thoughts began to move upon waking. What quickened my blood, of course, was the element of surprise: From whom would the letter be today? And what would the news be? And then, seemingly in the blink of an eye, the earth shifted. E-mail had arrived. Despite being fascinated by the new technology, I promised myself that I would never stop writing letters by hand. However, I had no control over the habits of others, and slowly, inexorably , and then with quickened pace, the letters disappeared from my mailbox, having been replaced with electronic "messages" , a totally different beast --in contrast to letters, all e-mails look alike. What made the author become a letter writer?
A letter from a long -lost friend. The desire to receive more letters. The joy of reading the first letter from Duane. The influence of the first Morse code message.