Wish You Were Here

Do you remember going on a vacation before cell phones, iPads, and delicious blackberries? When you wanted to send greetings from your vacation spot to your family and friends back home…you dropped a postcard in the mailbox. “Scribble and drop” came waaay before “click and send.”

The postcard aka The Boastcard: a 3 ½ x 4 ½ note card subtly boasting: I’M ON VACATION AND YOU’RE AT HOME.

I remember sending postcards back in the day. It was important for me to promptly get the postcard into the mail so it arrived at home…before I did. I remember looking for just the right card…staring at them all on a revolving display rack…spinning it around and around…trying to decide which card subtly said: Nah, nah, nah…You’re stuck at home in 4 feet of snow and I’m in sunny Mexico. (For example, of course.)

The act of sending postcards is a lost art. The process of carefully selecting the right picture and crafting a message to that certain someone is becoming obsolete. Now we simply take a picture with our cell phone and forward it to 10 of our dearest friends…at the same time. Subject: “Wish you were here.”

You always had to be very careful about getting too personal with what you wrote on the back of the postcard. You didn’t want to divulge TMI…after all…the postcard would be read by everyone who touched it. Including the mailman. The mailman always knew everyone’s business.

Anywhooooooooo………………

I was thinking the inventors of Twitter probably got their “What I’m doing…in 140 characters or less” idea from a postcard. Tweet: "Yo. Yo. Wit da posse in Cabo San Juan for Sun, Sand, Salsa, and Siesta." 140 characters is approximately the amount of space you had to cram in your bad handwriting on the back of the card.

Seeing I didn’t get my act together and send out any boastcards…………here’s my postcardBLOG to YOU:

In Cabo…having a whale of a time. Watching the whales breach. One more margarita and tamale…and San Juan will have another beached whale sighting.
Wish You were here.