If you are in the business of selling short sentiments on a regular basis, as postcard publishers once were, the problem quickly arises of how to say exactly what you said last time around, only in a new and interesting way. (This tendency is why a lot of great writers started out on the sports page of their local newspaper. New ways to say “Southwest Central; Loses A Close One” will tax the most viid imagination.)
“Why haven’t you written?”, “When are you coming to visit?”, and “Thinking of You” probably make up nearly half the sentiments of postcards intended as greetings. “Thinking of You” could run the gamut from “Where’s that five bucks you borrowed last St. patrick’s Day?’ to “I just realized you’re my soulmate.” This last one, and the variants, has kept Valentine makers in business for decades, and it was the same for the postcard maker.
The “I Love You” style of card needed special treatment. There were several questions that needed to be answered when sending one of these. A) Was the sender positive the recipient was going to feel the same way? B) Did he or she WANT a card that gushed all over until it was embarrassing, and, most importantly C)How many other people were going to read the card before it fell into the right hands?
One solution to all three of these was to dilute the message a little by having the sentiment pronounced in a pleasant accent, and another was to have children speaking the lines. (This led to a number of supposedly lovable cards done in Baby Talk. If you don’t mind your manners, Corned Beef Lasagna, I’ll post a blog about that some day.)
And this is where those Dutch kids really come into their own. By coming onto the stage in their cute hats and cute wooden shoes and speaking out, in their cute way with their cute accent, about every aspect of love and romance, they could cover the whole gamut of the game. It’s hardly possible to cover them all here, but the Dutch kids can tell us about a good time
Playing the Field
Throwing out one’s line
Responding to someone else’s line
Hitting it off
Devotion
Rapture
Jealousy
The Spat
Missing the Other
The Reunion
Popping the question
And the happy ending
(Note; this is just one lineup of story points frm thousands of Dutch child observations on love: for example, there’s a series with that wooden shoe car where she takes the wheel, pushes him out, and tells him if he can’t keep up with her, that’s all there is to it. But hey, why not knock off reading dese blogs and go schmooze wit’ de one you love yet?)
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