Pen Pal

In its original form, pen pal is a term used for a person with whom you become friendly by exchanging letters—written with a pen and sent via postal mail (snail mail we call it today)—especially  someone in a foreign country whom you have never met.

It was sometime in the 1930s that the concept of pen pal began, evolving from its original term, pen-friend.

Just when I thought pen paling has become extinct, my son #2, who lives in the US, wrote Tony that his son (our one and only grandchild), Adrian, aged 11, was taking up creative writing and would Tony and Adrian be pen pals by exchanging stories? 

It’s not the authentic pen paling concept, of course. They would use the email to write each other.

And so they have become pen pals, 21st century version, with Adrian writing stories about the future with bizarre beings and places, products of his fertile imagination. Tony writes stories about the past, his ancient days as a young boy, when computer was still a dream and writing letters was an art. 

I was given the privilege to take a peek at their exchanges and was I blessed with grace borne out of disparate times and spaces. I must say that at his young age, Adrian is an excellent writer. To which Tony would retort, “He has my genes, after all.”   

So, do people still write letters with their pens and send them via postal mail to someone out there? Well, not in the strictest sense.

I know of church groups who write encouraging handwritten letters to inmates with no access to technology.  There are websites that encourage pen paling. My brother in Australia and Tony’s cousin in the US still send us Christmas cards with notes in their handwriting.

New, modern pen paling is still alive and well.