postal service

so i'm not talking about the absolute best band of the last five years. i'm talking about the u.s. postal service. so yesterday i getting my daily dose of the colbert report (comedycentral.com), and some pbs guy was bragging about the documentary he was making about the civil war and all the letters he read as his source of information. which made me think, when was the last time you mailed a letter you wrote to "correspond" with an aquaintance? take for example, my uncle tracy. he sends me a letter each week detailing the events of his family. a special letter from canyon view medical center, addressed to peter u. frandsen, (i haven't had the heart to correct him over the last 4 1/2 years, that my middle name is shigeki, not ushio). but it's become such a treasured ritual. i make some food, sit down, open the letter and laugh to myself as i hear his distinct, semi-poetic, narrative voice come off the page. seriously, excluding email, im-ing, text, commenting on blogs, how many times have i really written to someone in my life? (that weren't in some way related to missionaries) but what would we do without all our technology. freak, you wouldn't even be reading this not-so-new lament of the things of yester-year. oh the lamentations...