We have addressed this question before, but addressing things gets to be a habit when you’re dealing with postcards. (Please, please: so much applause frightens the neighbors.) Although “Having wonderful time”, “Wish you were here” and “I am fine; how are you?” are all popular postcard messages, back around the turn of the last century, one of the most persistent was “Why haven’t you written?”
You’ll understand this if you throw your imagination into the thrilling days of yesteryear. We go back to a day when phones were rare and expensive, not a pocket accessory. There was certainly no chances to use email, or social media posts. Unless you were within walking distance of your friends and relatives—and in times of heavy snow and omnipresent ice, even that might not be good enough—the Postal Service was your only way to keep in touch.
The etiquette of the system is intuitional, but even in those days was frequently shuffled aside. The basic rue was “I write you a letter, you write ME a letter.” Sending someone two letters in a row was going above and beyond (this was in a day when a four or five page letter was not unusual, so a lot of work was involved.) Another rule, pertinent to the era of our concern, was “A letter demands a LETTER in return.” The receipt of a mere postcard did not count, which is why the jumble of designs and cartoons on postcards past includes so many “Here’s a card, I’ll REALLY write later” designs. This amounts to an apology for not taking the time to get out paper and an envelope (and it’s fascinating that the postcard industry was right there to supply this need. What other corporations produce products which apologize for their existence?)
That explains the aggrieved nature of so many of these postcards. They point out “You OWE me” or “I cared enough to write; what about you?”
We Do still have a little of that in the current century. Surely you had exchanges, back in the earlier days of the Interwebs, where you or your contact demanded, “Didn’t you get my email?” But there are alternatives now: texts and actual telephone calls. In the days when a trip to the mailbox involved rising hopes which would be dashed on arrival the anger was more fierce.
You COULD, of course, make a joke or a game of it. A mere hint (well, a blatant hint) might get a response where out and out scolding would not.
Oh, even just a pun would do the job.
To judge by how many years this particular pun was called into service. (Such a Fine Old Joke was a boon to cartoonists who needed to do a nagging postcard so as to get back to writing all those letters THEY owed people. I haven’t checked on how much fan mail postcard cartoonists received, but that’s a whole nother blog.)
Pretending to be concerned about the possible reasons for a lack of response was just as jolly, but a little more pointed. Your friend knew that YOU know they hadn’t run out of stamps, or paper, or ink. But at least you were going for the chuckle.
Other people simply prefer straightforward statement of their case. These are the postcard equivalent of rapping your foot when and where your friend can’t fail to notice: a short sharp reminder. Come to think of it….we’ll close now. I think I need to finish that stack of Christmas cards.
Blogsy Babbles 