Postcrossing Blog

Every so often, we do a little spotlight about a Postcrossing member, and this time we reached out to EvanescentHour, who lives in Illinois, USA. Without further ado, here are her answers to our questions!

How did you get started sending postcards? What is your earliest memory of them?

I actually didn’t get into postcarding until 2021. So my earliest memory is still fairly recent. My first postcarding experience was driving around with my mother, trying to find a good place that sells postcards. For some reason, I remember that I was reading 'Small Favors' by Erin A Craig in the check out line.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

In 2020 I started getting super into travel and learning about countries outside of my own. I liked researching places that I wanted to travel too, like The Netherlands and Norway. While doing this research I remembered that when I was around six or seven years old I had a penpal from Ireland. I thought that I would get back into the penpaling hobby but, unfortunately, the phone number that my grandma had called to get me set up with a penpal is now defunct. So I started searching for other websites and services that help set people up with penpals. That’s how I came across Postcrossing. It wasn’t penpaling so I was a bit skeptical at first, but I love collecting things so I thought that I would give it a go.

What got me hooked was the community. I love seeing other people’s handwriting, how they use stickers and washi tape, and how they structure sentences. I enjoy going to the forums and talking to users there as well.

What’s one way that postcards have changed your life for the better?

Postcards have been super important to me. 2020–2022 had been very rough years for me and sending postcards helped brighten my day a little bit. They were something to make me smile when I felt like I didn’t have many other reasons to do so. They also helped me connect with my mother and grandmother.

Have you met any other members in real life?

I have! I went to a postcarding meetup with my mother and grandmother. It was an amazing experience, lots of friendly people and we had a nice lunch in this local cafe. The atmosphere was very relaxed and quaint and everyone seemed to connect right away. I also found out that I had met one of the people there BEFORE the actual meetup; we had talked to each other at an Eivør concert about two months prior to the Postcrossing meetup.

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

My favorite Postcrossing coincidence is that I was browsing for users from the Bahamas to request a direct swap from and the profile that I clicked on, ended up being the user whose address I pulled!

I was also surprised to have gotten one from Guam.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

My favorite post card that I have received is the Blue Man Group postcard from this photo of my collection. I don’t have a close up picture of it but it has a special place in my heart because my mom surprised me with it one day. She knew that I was getting super into the hobby and when she visited Chicago she sent it back to me as a little memento. My mother has very recently passed away and so it’s nice to have this small piece of her with me.

As for postcards that I got from Postcrossing there are two that I really love and can’t choose between; there is this bat maxicard. I adore bats, they are my favorite animals and this is the first maxicard I’ve received. It’s also pretty new!

I also really love this one. Bellatrix is one of my all time favorite characters so it was super cool to get a postcard with her on it!

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

I think that my favorite part of the process is actually walking to the mailbox! Both to send postcards and to check to see if I received any. I especially love doing so in the springtime when I can get a whiff of the lilacs and wet grass.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies or collections?

I like to say that I collect collections because I have so many from rocks to fandom merch. But my favorite collection is my CD and Vinyl collection. I have over 500 CD’s (my goal is to get 1000 of them). I have CD’s across almost all genres, my favorites are Symphonic Metal and Folk Metal.

My favorite hobbies aside from postcarding are creative writing and scrapbooking. Writing in particular; I have been making up fantasy stories since I could pick up a pencil. I love writing horror and fantasy the most and hope to be a published author one day. For now I share my stories with the world through fanfiction and have made a lot of friends that way.

Is there anything else that you are passionate about?

Music and nature are my passions. I also have an interest in bats, the goth subculture, storms, Dutch culture, and Swedish culture. I have autism so I get super super invested in all of these topics.

Music and the goth subculture are probably the two things that I am most invested in. I have a goal to discover and listen to one band from every country in every continent. So far I have listened to one band in every country in Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America and one band in every US state. I am working on discovering one band from each Oceanic country.

The goth subculture has also been very important to me. For the longest time I had trouble making friends because I never really tried to 'mask’ my autism. The goth scene in itself is a subversion to societal norms and so I, already more of an outcast so to speak, found a home in that scene. I love the fashion and the music. I love the aesthetics. And I found that after putting on the corset and the choker, my confidence skyrocketed. I started making more friends both fellow goths and outsiders who were curious about why I dress the way I do.

Bob Eckstein is an award-winning writer, New Yorker cartoonist, and author/illustrator of The New York Times best-selling book (and postcard box set!), Footnotes from the World’s Greatest Bookstores.

Last summer, in a webcast interview from his New York-based studio, Bob shared with Clarisse (aka CStar9) his love for endangered bookstores, admitted he used to send toast through the mail, and urged creative people not to work alone.

For your World’s Greatest Bokstores project, why bookstores? And how did you narrow down your bookstore choices?

There were many different reasons why a store would be chosen: its historical significance, its importance to the community, maybe its beauty. Main-Street bookstores play so many important roles in a community, and I wanted to capture these in the book.

I have a great interest in story: people want to read something with meat on the bone. Luckily, bookstores are magical places. I profiled about 150 to 200 bookstores, and then had to choose half. I was hoping there would be a sequel!

You’ve written books about the bookstores of the world, but you’ve also written about snowmen, cats, Arctic explorers, and more. What does research look like for you?

Each of these books would have taken much longer without the internet. I make every attempt to visit and learn from a subject in person, but that is not logistically realistic, so sometimes research comes from surfing the web.

Once I find out everything I can, I try to simplify and curate the interesting stuff. That’s the glamorous part of writing a book. But eventually there comes a point where you have to stop doing that and just start writing.

You write for TV, you write prose, you paint, you are a cartoonist… Is there a medium that feels most like home for you?

It’s so much fun to create a cartoon that makes people laugh. And writing is something that I am certainly at home with.

I juggle many different things in my career. I’m a public speaker, I teach, I do cartoons for different magazines, I do illustration. It’s hard to make a living from this stuff. You have to produce a tremendous amount of work. At the moment, I’m working on four different books.

I write almost every single day. For the last few years, I’ve been waking up by 5:30 a.m. to start writing. By 9:00 a.m., I usually finish a piece. Then I can get started with the rest of my workday. That discipline is how I get so much done. I also don’t watch much TV!

You’ve said in an interview, “My deadlines are relentless [and I don’t doodle for fun]. If I’m drawing, it’s with a purpose.” Do you ever get creator’s block and if so, what do you do about it?

I have lists of ideas I don’t have time to get through.

I don’t get writer’s block, where I’m just sitting around for an idea or joke to fall into my lap. The way I teach others how to get out of ruts is this: usually it’s a matter of tuning in to the voices and ideas in your head. These days the world is a very loud place. We are all inundated with distractions and sensory overload. Taking a walk or just even taking a bath to be alone with your thoughts…it’s surprising how easy it can be to come up with ideas during those times.

You also can’t work alone. I believe the best gift a creative person can have is the ability to surround themselves with talented people.

Anything I’ve had success with can be traced back to someone who helped me: someone who gave me encouragement, who inspired me to explore something new, or who gave me a professional opportunity.

How do you narrow down your ideas?

There is so much rejection in this field. So, basically, I fold up as many paper airplanes as possible, and then I chuck them out of the window and see which ones stick.

I never actually intended to do postcards. But the opportunity came, and I went with it. I didn’t appreciate initially that the Bookstore postcards would go over so well. I always just cross my fingers that people will have a chance to see the things I work on. I know I usually sound like a have an ego the size of God’s cigar, but I was genuinely surprised to hear that for example, students were wallpapering their dorm rooms with the Bookstore postcards.

What’s your relationship to postal mail?

I love postcards. I have sent thousands of them – really! I used to send out mailings in groups of a thousand to potential art clients. I also sent jokes like poly-ethylening slices of toast and writing “Keep in toast” in yellow plastic that looked like squeeze-on butter. I eventually mailed them in plastic bags after sending hundreds with just putting a stamp on the piece of toast. Today I probably would be arrested.

I dearly miss the age of regularly corresponding with hand-written postcards. This year I sent maybe only a hundred. Email has ruined it, postage increases has ruined it, younger generations who don’t even write in script anymore has ruined it. I know I sound like an old man yelling from his porch, but it seems everything I love is going extinct -—from old-fashioned postcard correspondence to vinyl LPs, MAD magazine, and gag cartoons. I try to be a help. I raise awareness about the plight of disappearing bookstores. I’m writing a book now on our most important museums, and I’m working with a friend on a film that’s partly about climate change.

You do live drawing for events. How did that come about?

When I was a kid, I loved Sports Illustrated, and they would do drawings of sporting events. I eventually worked for them and was also a sports reporter of sorts for The Village Voice and The New York Times. So, it was natural for me to incorporate my humor and artwork to coverage.

I used to take-over the Times website front page for the Super Bowl, Olympics, or World Series. Then I did it for The New Yorker: the Oscars, Golden Globes, etc. I still live-draw occasionally to promote cultural events. It’s perfect for today when people want to see stuff as much as they want to read about it.

It’s also an example of how I like to always push the envelope, which artists and writers should always do. I’m always asking “what if?”.

It’s like the squirrel operetta I tried to make. What if?

What are you most proud of, outside of your writing and art?

It used to be my hair.

I’m very proud of my wife. She is a well-known book artist and a total bad-ass—she will hate this answer and I will pay for it later. But that’s what being a bad-ass is all about.

What advice would you give your 10-year-old self?

Growing up, there was no one who said, you’re funny, or, you should be a cartoonist. That didn’t happen until I was surrounded by friends very late in life.

My friend and mentor Sam Gross – who happened to be a cartoonist for the New Yorker – organized my birthday party one year. That party also happened to be the regular New Yorker staff lunch. The food was very good. I asked if I could come the following week and he said sure, but you also should make a cartoon and submit it to the magazine.

So I took up his dare, and the New Yorker ended up buying and publishing the first cartoon I drew. I realized later it wasn’t as easy as that. But it opened the door.

I always say to my students, you’re never going to have these things happen if you don’t show up. 80% of success is just showing up – being willing to listen to and learn from people. You never know when something life-changing is right there in front of you.

What’s next for you? And importantly: what postcards can we expect next?

This summer, I spoke at the Humor Writing Conference. A few times a month, I produce my Substack newsletter, The Bob, which has turned into a huge, pleasant surprise. I have a handful of magazine assignments to complete. As I said, I’m working on four books.

And I am looking to make a box set of postcards in 2025, of museums in the U.S.

We can’t just leave on that cliff-hanger! Tell us about the museums postcard project!

I covered 155 museums for this project. Like with the bookstores project, I visited as many of the museums as I could in person. But for those I couldn’t visit, I sent friends and other ambassadors to report back to me with their impressions and photographs.

When I went to a museum myself, first I would just go and experience the place holistically. But in the back of my mind, I was always thinking, what’s the best angle or the most unique view of this place that would create an incentive to people, to say, Oh, I’ve gotta add this place to my bucket list.

An example is the American Museum of Natural History, which has an iconic blue whale that hangs in the main room of the oceanic division. I felt like it would be delinquent on my part not to give people what they expect and want to see in a view of that place. And then I would make supplemental illustrations to pique additional interest. I hope people will feel a real sense of wonder when they’re exploring this project, whether they’re looking at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston or the SPAM Museum in Minnesota. It’s just mind-blowing that all these places exist.

I want to add that I’m still sad that the bookstore book ended. It was the same with the museums project. I did three illustrations a day. I put my heart and soul into this project and slept very little. But I didn’t mind the long hours because it was such a fun thing to do.

Editor’s note: Footnotes from the Most Fascinating Museums is about to be published — it’ll be out on May 14. Hopefully the corresponding set of postcards will soon follow! 😊

To learn more about Bob, check out his website and newsletter! Bob has given interviews about the long and winding road to becoming an author and cartoonist, about humor, about his book The Complete Book of Cat Names and also been interviewed for the New Yorker Cartoon Caption Contest podcast. For the aspiring writers out there, he has some tips on publishing and writing on Writer’s Digest.

And now, for the sneaky giveaway: Clarisse is going to send 4 postcards from Bob’s World’s Greatest Bookstores set to 4 randomly picked postcrossers! 🎉 To participate, leave a comment below to share your favorite bookshop. Come back this time next week to check out the winners!

Some months ago, we received a message from Janna (aka revode) who told us about her visit to a wonderful postcard exhibition at the Porter County Museum in Indiana! Sadly, we couldn’t go there ourselves… but the cheeky Little Mail Carriers were happy to jump in and volunteer for a guided tour. 😍 Here is the report from their latest adventure!

Hello everyone! We have arrived at the Porter County Museum in Valparaiso, Indiana! We heard that the PoCo Muse has an exhibit with hundreds of postcards on display until January 7, 2024 so we decided to come check it out!

The Porter County Museum was founded in 1916 and has over 20,000 objects in their collection related to the history and culture of Porter County, Indiana. With so many objects in the collection they rotate through what is on display frequently in order to tell as many stories as possible. When we visited, the Robert Cain Gallery was featuring art from the museum’s collection, the Eunice Slagle Gallery had the exhibit “Connections: Take a Closer Look”, and the Montague/Urshel Gallery featured (the exhibit that we traveled here for) “Ever Yours: Postcards from the Golden Age”.

Before searching out the postcards, we explored the Robert Cain Gallery, admiring the work of many Porter County artists who worked to capture scenes from the area. The art in the Cain Gallery rotates out every three months, so that there are always new things to see.

Walking through the museum to get to the postcards, we had to journey through the “Connections” exhibit where seemingly different objects from the museum’s collection are paired together with a variety of connections between them. This concept allows for a wide range of objects to be on display. Did you know that there has been a Popcorn Festival in Valparaiso every September since 1979?

One of the first objects we came across in “Connections” was just our size! It is a scale model of the Maxwell/Remster Dairy Barn which was made by John Remster Sr. for his son John Remster Jr. in the 1950s. The barn can be opened up and played with and has been played with by every generation of the Remster family since its creation! Unfortunately, the barn it is modeled after no longer exists, though the milk house that was connected still stands.

These two pieces are connected by being not the final product. The linocut block (right) shows the artist, Hazel Hannell’s home that was in Furnessville, IN. No prints made from this block are known to exist, though you never know what might be in someone’s attic. The “Brenda Starr Reporter” comic strip was written and illustrated by Dale Messick who lived in Ogden Dunes, IN and inserted many local and personal references into her strip. The comic is in the final stage when it comes to the artist but not for the reader who ultimately would have seen this in the newspaper.

I swear that dog is watching us… 🤨

Check out this postmark stamp! It is from a town that no longer exists! The Tassinong Post office was founded the year after Porter County was founded in 1836, making it one of the earliest European settlements in the region. By 1884, almost all of the Porter County post offices were receiving their mail by rail, Tassinong was one of two still serviced by horseback. At the turn of the 20th century, when the Kankakee Marsh was being drained, the people of Tassinong refused to allow a proposed rail line to come to their town. The railroad, instead, bypassed the village and promoted a new town called Kouts. In 1903 the Tassinong post office was discontinued with all of the people relocating to somewhere serviced by rail.

Can you imagine checking someone out on this cash register? This is a nickel plate brass National Cash Register manufactured in 1914 sold to Wark’s Hardware in Valparaiso. The register worked perfectly at Wark’s until the early 1990s when someone broke into the store and broke the machine. Mr. Wark was not one to throw things away just because they didn’t work, so he disconnected one of the cash drawers from the machine and then it became a very large cash drawer until the store closed in the early 2000s.

Turns out she WAS watching us! This is Daisy the taxidermied dog and her eyes follow you! She is 90 years young and belonged to Helen Slanger of Portage, IN. She has been in the museum’s collection since the 1970s and has become an unofficial icon of the museum.

After journeying through ‘Connections’, we finally made it to “Ever Yours: Postcards from the Golden Age” — the exhibition we had been looking for! I don’t think that that postcard will fit in a regular mail slot…

Did you know that the first postcard was created in 1869!?

The PoCo Muse has over 2000 postcards in their collection. How did they narrow it down to the couple hundred on display? The wall of postcards that are behind us here were all received by one man, John Griffin, from Valparaiso, IN!

Did you know that approximately 1 billion penny postcards were sent every year between 1907 and 1915?

All of these flip books have both sides of a historic postcard with transcriptions! This one is a real photo postcard showing Lila and Thaddeus Whitlock posing with their dog Maxie. Lila sent this to her daughter Olive who was studying Nursing in Iowa in 1912. It is nice to see that people have felt conflicted about their selfies from the beginning; “I was so engaged in trying to keep Maxie still, I forgot to look pleasant.”

The exhibit makes the comparison of postcards to social media of today. The message is public since there is no envelope, the amount of text is limited to the space available on the card, and it is accompanied by an image which might be compared to today’s use of memes. Just like social media today there was pushback to the use of postcards with detractors saying that postcards symbolize “the triumph of the commonplace.”

This binder of postcards shows an individual’s collection of historic postcards that they loaned for the exhibit. In the early 20th century it was common to invite guests over and flip through your postcard collection. Similar to showing friends vacation photos.

After reading all of those postcards it was nice to color some for ourselves. Plus once we are done coloring the booklet, it can be turned into a postcard — just tape it shut and add a stamp on the back! On the wall above, the many postcards sent to the museum are on display, which helps to show that postcards are still thriving today! Hurray! 🎉

Thank you to the wonderful team at the Porter County Museum, and especially Visitor Experience Manager Quinn, for opening their arms to the Little Mail Carriers and showing them around. If you’re in the area, the exhibition will be there until January 7th, so don’t miss it!

The little ones are back on their envelope and on their way to their next adventure… who knows where they’ll pop up!

Sue (aka Suegathman) has been a guest on the Postcardist podcast, and a huge fan of postcards and correspondence all her life. We thought it’d be great to invite her to chat a bit on our blog about her love of postcards and of Postcrossing, and get a glimpse into her postcard-related interests! She agreed, and we hope you’ll be fascinated by her stories below.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

In 2007, I spent lots of time on a message board (remember those?) for another interest of mine, and one of the members had the Postcrossing URL in her signature line. I’ve always been fascinated with anything to do with mail, and I clicked on the link and was intrigued. I signed up right away and sent my first five cards – which were immediately returned to me by the postman, because I put my return address in the corner and the scanning machine routed them back to me. I was mortified and almost gave up – luckily I decided to give it another try! I was on the lookout for a new hobby which wouldn’t take up a lot of time, since I had just returned to work full-time after many years raising kids. While I no longer had free time during the day to sew or read, I still wanted to do something that was fun and provided a little escape from reality. I also had a big stash of blank postcards I’d collected over the years. It seemed like a match made in heaven – which, in fact, it turned out to be.

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

It’s hard to narrow it down, since I have so many great cards to choose from. I really love old propaganda and advertising cards. They say so much to me about a culture and its values. When I received this card several years ago, I put it up on a bulletin board in my kitchen and invited everyone who came over to make up a caption for it, since it’s in another alphabet. The answers were hilarious! I also immediately fell in love with this card and put it on my bulletin board at work – which is a little cheeky since I work for the government. I share the responsibility for training our young interns, and I love seeing if any of them recognize these famous faces.

How did you get started sending postcards? What is your earliest memory of them?

When my sister and I were small, my parents would often take trips during the summers while our grandparents came to our house to watch us. They always sent us postcards from their trips, usually standard viewcards showing famous attractions they visited. Our entire extended family liked to send postcards – lately I’ve enjoyed sorting through batches of old cards which my grandparents and great-grandparents exchanged with my parents.

What’s one way that postcards have changed your life for the better?

This hobby, and our wonderful Postcrossing community, have carried me through many different phases of life. When I first signed up, I was newly back to work after raising kids, had just moved to California and was trying to figure out what my adult life would look like. During the 15.5 years since then, I’ve been surrounded by postcards as my marriage ended, I took care of my ailing parents, I lost my job, went back to school and started a new career, the kids grew up and left home (and came back again), I met and married my new husband, got through Covid isolation, changed careers again… whatever I’m doing, postcards are there with me. This hobby is the one constant as my life has moved in different directions!

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

Two cards are extra-special to me because they came from people I know in “real life, ” who I didn’t know were Postcrossers! A friend I’ve known for more than 20 years sent me this card, featuring a couple of photos of us together over the years. And the husband of my mom’s oldest friend sent me a card not too long ago. These were both big surprises (and cool cards in their own right, too). It’s also been interesting, since I’ve been participating in the project for a while, to see which countries are most active. When I first started, most of my cards seemed to go to Finland. Later, there was a full year in which I hardly sent any cards anywhere but Russia. During Covid, so many countries stopped exchanging mail with the US. Lately, the US has gotten more active, so the majority of my cards go there or to Germany.

Have you met any other members in real life?

Yes – we’re lucky to have a really great local group in San Diego which gets together twice a year for official meetups, plus many of us have become friends in “real life” and do other things together. Some of our local Postcrossers are my close friends, and they’ve introduced me to other hobbies I really enjoy. A Postcrosser even got me my first job after graduation!

Is there anything else that you are passionate about?

Other than postcards, food is my greatest obsession! One of the things that makes me happiest is cooking for a crowd of people, and I love hosting holiday meal and having friends over for dinner (and board games or cards). I volunteer with Lasagna Love, which matches up volunteer cooks with families and individuals in need of a home-cooked meal. Except for a few breaks for travel or health issues, I’ve been making and delivering a lasagna or two every week for the last 2 1/2 years, which is a lot of fun – I’ve gotten really efficient at it!

I met Eric (aka eta55) last year, when we were both invited to talk about Postcrossing for the Transatlantic Educator Dialogue podcast. During our conversation, he struck me as a really interesting person, so I wanted to bring him to the blog for a spotlight interview. Enjoy!

How did you get started sending postcards? What is your earliest memory of them?

I have always been interested in correspondence. My uncle served in the Marines, and he used to send me letters from when he was deployed overseas. I thought it was amazing to get a letter from a foreign country when I was a little kid! I really never knew very much about postcards though. I knew they existed, but never really sent or received any until I joined Postcrossing.

How did you come across Postcrossing? What got you hooked?

I read a news article about it somewhere, but I don’t remember the source. That was in the fall of 2017. I then encountered a teacher during a holiday gathering who was using it in her classroom to get her students engaged with other cultures. Our encounter inspired me to pursue it further, and I joined Postcrossing in January of 2018 and have been enjoying it ever since.

Show us your mailbox, your mailman/mailwoman, your postoffice or the place where you post or keep your postcards!

Here is a photo of my mailbox:

It is out here in the real world, hungry for postcards!

The post office I use most frequently is a nondescript little shop front in a small strip mall on the way to work. Not particularly photogenic, many post offices in America are not, sadly. It has a postmaster and one clerk. The bulk of the cards I have sent have gone from there, so it has been instrumental in my involvement with Postcrossing. The postmaster got covid in December 2021 and was in and out of the hospital (very dedicated woman, she kept returning to work too soon and they had to call an ambulance for her twice!). She was a long termer, and was struggling throughout January 2022. I reached out on the Postcrossing forums and asked for postcards to be sent to the postoffice for when she returned to work and welcome her back. She got over thirty well-wishing cards from all over the world, and the next time I came in she told all of the customers they just had to wait, and went through each card with me in tears. Another story of Postcrossing and the power of loving gifts to strangers. I am pleased to report that she is doing much better now, back to her old self, and hand cancelling all of my postcards with glee every time I drop by!

Show and tell us about your favorite received postcard to date, and what makes it special.

I can’t show you a picture of it, because my favorite postcard is always the next one I will receive! There is hope and love and potential coming to my mailbox, and each card has a unique message, and very often a delightful image. Each one gives me the opportunity to go learn about the person who sent it, and to explore where they live, and learn more about our world. Each one creates a connection, even if only fleeting. Someone sent me a little gift a few days or a few weeks or even a few months ago, and when it comes today, that will be my favorite.

I do have favorite topics. I am always moved when I get a battered, scarred card that has fought its way through to me, often after a very long trip. I recently got a card from a postcrosser in the Bahamas, it had taken over two years to get to me from an island in the ocean about 750 miles away. I messaged the sender since it could no longer be registered, and they were delighted to hear that I had finally got it! Another connection! I always like to get meetup cards, because they mean that a group of postcrossers has actually crossed the gulf between sender and receiver and gathered together to celebrate each other and these connections. I met a group of Irish postcrossers via a couple of virtual meetups and I got a really special card from them recently. A few weeks ago a group of them travelled to Spain to attend a wedding of two of their group! So the Irish meetup card from the wedding in Spain I think really speaks to what I love about this hobby!

This is an impossible question, really, each one is my favorite!

What is it your favorite part of the Postcrossing process?

Hard to pick just one thing. There is the joyful anticipation of walking out to the mail box, for sure. I think what I really like best is the little puzzle of finding a way to spread some joy to a particular stranger. You draw an address, and you have no idea of who it will be or where they will be located. Their bio and their favorites may provide you some ideas. Then you have to find the right card, and the right stamps, and craft a message to create a little package of a present all on a postcard. Sometimes you decorate it. I think another really joyful part of the process is the “hurray” messages. When you find out that little piece of cardboard that you released into the chaotic universe actually made it across oceans and continents and into the hands of another human that you don’t really know, and that they were glad to get it and that it brought a smile to their face! The fact that can actually happen, over and over again, thrills me every time!

Have you been surprised by any place that you have received a postcard from or sent a postcard to?

If I asked you to guess the country I’ve received cards from that has the shortest average travel time, what country would you pick (keep in mind I do receive cards from my home country)? I think most anyone would say in the U.S, you’d receive quickest from the U. S., right? Nope. That average receipt time is 10 days. I got a card from Rwanda (my only one from there) in eight days! Wouldn’t you love to know the story behind that trip? My only other cards (officials) from Africa have come from South Africa, they average 36 days. How did that Rwanda card get here in 8 days? That’s the shortest trip from anywhere I’ve received cards from!

Is there anything else that you are passionate about?

I am passionate about dogs. Of all of the creatures I have interacted with, they are my favorite.

I am passionate about science and the accumulation of knowledge. That is another keystone of the way forward. I am always delighted to gain an understanding of how things work!

I am passionate about the Constitution of the United States of America. It is an imperfect document, to be sure, but I believe it provides a template for the best way forward for humans as a race. Democracy is a messy business, and it is hard and requires dedication. Finding a balance between individual freedom and what is best for the group writ large is always a compromise. We have to continually work at it. I have to say as well that we (Americans) are not always very good at it.

I am passionate about communication. I am fascinated by the ways we go about it and it is utterly astounding to me that we are able to effectively communicate at all. We each experience the universe differently, our senses themselves often differ in capability, and yet we still are able to somehow bridge that gap and share ideas. That is nothing short of amazing. In that vein, I would offer that I am passionate about poetry.

Beethoven. That music speaks to me in my bones.

What excites me? What am I most passionate about?

Margo. My partner, my lover, my friend. Above all Margo.

Do you have any other interesting hobbies or collections?

My wife likes to say that I collect hobbies! In no particular order:

• I am a birdwatcher, so in a sense you could say I collect birds, or at least observations of them.
• As a retired sailor, I love to visit beaches and lighthouses, so I collect those images and experiences.
• I am gradually building a Lego city in my basement; the patterns of pieces and construction techniques intrigue me.
• I collect rocks and tumble them. There is both a tactile and science/knowledge component to that.
• I play chess, and have a small collection of chess sets.
• I have a collection of submarine first day covers, as well as other ship first day covers, mostly sailing ships.
• I have a small collection of fountain pens.

If I had to summarize the nature of my collections/hobbies/interests, I’d have to say that I collect knowledge and experiences, and that I have a fascination with patterns, in many dimensions and modalities.