In an e-mail age, letters from pen pal are a thrill
By KATHERINE SNOW SMITH, Times Correspondent
Published October 23, 2005
Raffi Darrow loved getting mail from her pen pal - except on Saturdays. Her Jewish family observed the Sabbath, so on Saturdays she had to adhere to strict rules, including one that didn't allow her to tear paper until sundown.
"Whenever I got a letter, I would rip it open and devour it immediately," recalls Darrow, 30. "But if it was Saturday, I would sit there for like seven hours waiting to open it."
She grew up in California. Her best friend, Pamela, moved to New York after second grade, and she moved to St. Louis after third grade. But they continued to write each other for the next 10 years or so and then started e-mailing.
Pamela visited Darrow when they were 15. When Darrow turned 18, her parents gave her a plane ticket to visit Pamela. And Darrow went to Pamela's wedding in Los Angeles in 1999. That makes three face-to-face visits since age 7, yet the letters and e-mails have kept them close.
"Other than my husband, she's my best friend," Darrow, a St. Petersburg mom of two girls, said recently in an interview. "The night before her wedding, she pulled out a bag of all the letters she had saved. I have every letter, too. We wrote monthly. They would be 13-page letters because when you're a teenager and you're bored in class, you start writing about every boyfriend and your bad perm and everything."
Though many relationships built on postal correspondence don't last this long, having a pen pal used to be a childhood rite of passage. But these days, with the immediacy of e-mail and, perhaps more so, packed afterschool and weekend schedules, most kids don't have pen pals. But if you watch them open a card from a grandparent or even an appointment reminder from the dentist, you'll notice that they still get a thrill from seeing their name on the outside of an envelope that has traveled a long way to reach them.
After a few failed attempts to get an international pen pal through one of the few remaining companies that sell pen pal addresses, my 8-year-old last summer finally found a girl to correspond with. They met one morning on the beach in front of my parents' vacation house in North Carolina. By the next morning when we were all packing up to leave, she and Natalie, of Charlotte, N.C., were hugging goodbye and promising to write. They've exchanged several letters since then.
My sister met her pen pal at the same beach in a hotel pool about 30 years ago. She and Felecia Shumi, of Flushing, N.Y., wrote each other for several years. We even timed two following vacations so we were at the beach at the same time Felecia's family was. Long after their correspondence faded, we fondly remembered Felecia and her gregarious New York family. When we played Marco Polo in the pool and Mr. Shumi was "it," he complained if the swimmers he blindly chased didn't answer "Polo" when he called out "Marco."
"Let me hear them Polos, you guys. Let me hear them Polos," he chanted.
To this day, when someone isn't appreciating a specially cooked meal or really thanking someone for a present, my parents tease: "Let me hear them Polos."
There are many benefits to having a pen pal. A child gets to have a relationship with a friend that belongs only to him or her. The letters can be saved in a special place and read over and over. Composing letters helps develop writing and handwriting skills. And kids with international pen pals can start a stamp collection - another almost extinct childhood hobby.
It's great if a child also has an e-mail pal, but I think there is something more special about putting thoughts and secrets down on paper. And speaking of the paper, that's a big part of any childhood correspondence. You can't draw flowers or clouds on the outside of an e-mail. And you can't include stickers or a piece of gum.
If your child moves, meets a friend at camp or on vacation or has a long distance relative, that's a good way to find someone to be a pen pal. If not, it gets a little harder. With so many security concerns these days, many parents are leery of letting their child write to a stranger, even another child.
Student Letter Exchange is a New York company that matches about 250,000 pen pals a year. In 65 years, they have recorded fewer than five incidents involving a writer sending or saying something inappropriate.
"Still, we tell parents once contact is initially made they should supervise the communication and make sure everything is going well," said general manager Rocco Vudani.
Student Letter Exchange (www.pen-pal.com) was started by a teacher who wanted to promote communication between cultures. Students, with their parents' or teacher's permission, can buy names of children in other countries or other states who have requested pen pals. It has a large network of teachers and principals from around the world. Addresses cost $1.25 with a $5 minimum charge.
Until about 15 years ago, there were a dozen such companies. But Vudani said he doesn't know of any remaining ones that specialize only in written letters. After a decline for several years, business has been steady enough in recent years to support his staff, which fluctuates from seven to 15 employees.
"We've had mothers write us and say they want to get a pen pal for their daughter because they've been writing to a pen pal that came from us 40 years ago," he said.
Many pen pals visit each other in foreign countries, maybe just once or in some cases regularly.
Darrow is pleased that both her daughters are writing to pen pals. She has to nudge them sometimes when it's their turn to write, she said. That's probably the key to keeping any correspondence going when kids are younger.
Seven-year-old Wendy likes to send postcards to Holly, a friend who moved from Florida to Louisiana. "I like to tell her about what I've been doing," she said, "if I've been going on vacation or if I was student of the week."
You can reach Katherine Snow Smith by e-mail at snowsmith@verizon.net or write Rookie Mom, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731.
