Scrapbooks

Wednesday is my typical DWIW-day, another privilege and opportunity in my relifement for which i am most thankful. (Do Whatever I Want-day, pronounced: dwewday) i typically don't plan them; i just let them take their own course. this dwewday, today, i spent ever so gently turning the pages of 2 old scrapbooks i recently found in my attic. the oldest of the two will soon be 55 years old! needless to say, the pages, once manilla colored, are now quite browned and brittle. i, in retrospect, have fared much better, being neither.

i put together this scrapbook when i was 12 years old to hold well over a hundred cards and lettters that were sent to me while i was hospitalized with a serious illness. i was in the 6th grade at the time and was informed much, much later that i was given one chance in ten of coming out of the hospital alive. well, thanks be to GOD, i took that one chance and praise Him for seeing me through.

Some of the long letters from my brother, who's handwriting i might add, still looks similar, are really precious. he now lives 3,000 miles from me, yet we are just as close in spirit as we were when growing up...another thing for which i'm extremely thankful. my sisters at the time were too young to write but there were numerous little cards from them, signed in my mother's handwriting.

one really neat paper, folded and inserted in the front of the scrapbook is a rather large piece of brown butcher paper (and if you are old enough to remember that kind of paper, you don't have to admit it to me). it is signed in various youthful handwriting by all my 6th grade classmates from my elementary school. The expressions were all somewhat similar as far as get well soon, we miss you, hurry back to school, but the really astounding thing that hit me as i read every note this morning, was how amazingly clear my mind flashed a mental picture of just about every single student! i could see their little 12 year old faces almost as clearly as if they were standing in front of me. isn't it incredible how just the spark of reading their notes and names, my mind knew exactly who wrote those words?!

another really neat thing was that there were several beautifully handwritten or printed letters from, not only the teacher whose 6th grade class i was missing, but also from my first and second grade teachers of the same school. i thought that was rather amazing! then too, cards and letters from members and pastor of both my former church as well as the church i was then a member of, and also from the choir director. (a lot of people prayed for my recovery.) i even got cards and letters from the mothers of my friends and the owner of the corner candy store!

the other thing that struck me was the designs and shapes of the cards that many long years ago. they were elaborate, colorful, and most of them die-cut into various shapes, and folded quite uniquely. there were even several that had little pull-out sections, or a tiny card inserted into the main card. many had extravagant fold-out sections that popped up when the card was opened! nice cards today are very, very expensive, and pretty standard. if you do find a more elaborate one (in a card store as opposed to drug store for instance) you pay quite a pretty penny for it.

i think with the advent of email and ecards, personal handwritten letters and card-sending is almost a lost art. granted, 42 cents to send snail-mail is a lot more than the 3 cents that was posted on the wishes i reviewed today, sent so long ago. but, c'mon, tell the truth: when you receive your daily mail, isn't the very first thing you open, as you set aside the junk-mail and bills, an envelope that is handwritten and you know inside it contains a card, note or a letter from a dear family member or close friend?

the second old scrapbook i enjoyed looking through this morning---well, more on that later. i have some cards and letters to go write just now! i recently even got a new fountain pen that i'll use; remember them?