So, when last we got together, we were discussing what I insist on calling the “grade school Valentine postcard”: an aesthetic choice of artists and/or postcard publishers to apply classic Valentine form to postcards which could be sent all year long. This involved a bright picture with a fairly obvious bit of wordplay which led to the sentiment, as with, say, a picture of Bambi saying “DEER me, I want you to be my Valentine!”
Last time, we considered those which led to the sentiment “Why don’t you write, you deadbeat?” This was far from being the only sentiment to utilize the grade school Valentine strategy. Another popular postcard theme was meant to follow up on those cards, so that slow correspondents could respond with a “Sorry I’m such a deadbeat” cards. The theme was just as popular, but could now use jokes and arts that would have been frowned on in a second grade Valentine box.
As in this card, in which the degree of naughtiness depends on which person you feel is speaking, and the intention of those who used the word “feeling”.
But surely one of the most used phrases ever on a postcard is “Having wonderful time. Wish you were her.” (Right after “I am fine. How are you?”) So plenty of grown-up Valentines were designed to rob the sender of a line that would help fill all that space on the other side.
These cards were actually part of a major transition in the theory and practice of postcarding. In its early history, postcards were, as noted hereintofore, the equivalent of texts: something you could send to friends to send news, convey invitations, or just share a joke. As the twentieth century ground on, postcards were becoming something you sent while on vacation.
Our grade school Valentine “wish you were here” cards did not limit themselves: there were still plenty of people who sent cards the old way, and used these to invite old friends to come and visit them in their homes. But they were designed to be useful to the new breed, who had rented a cabin at the lake and decided “the more the merrier”.
Whether there was a subtext of “I know you can’t come, but don’t you wish you could>” kind of depends on the sender. But this applies to any postcard you sent from your five-star hotel room OR that grubby fishing shack with no electricity but a large liquor cabinet.
As noted in our last thrilling installment, there was also room on such cards for more than just gags about monkeys and giraffes which would not shock a second grade teacher in the classroom.
After the lottery comes through and I have the time and money to do all the research, I WILL look up postcard collections in libraries and find out how many of these cards were, in fact, sent by second grade teachers who had gotten out of the classroom long enough for a beach vacation. They may have gravitated to the artistic style they knew best even on an out-of-town skinny-dipping expedition. Don’t wait around: the lottery has not been doing much for me since I suggested some of these postcards would make best-selling Instant Win tickets. I should send another one of those “Why Don’t You Write?” cards to remind them I’m here.
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