Penpal - grace grits and gardening

Did you ever have a penpal?

I connected with my penpal via Tiger Beat, my favorite teeny bopper magazine which I devoured each month cover-to-cover primarily to monitor the activities of my puppy love Donny Osmond.

Be.Still.My.Heart. ♡♡♡Yes, in the 1970’s, Tiger Beat had a penpal section, pages of names and addresses of kids who wanted to be matched with a friend on the other side of the planet. Yes, in the 1970s, people wrote letters by hand with real paper and ink……

Living on the opposite side of the world, my Australian penpal was exotic. At Christmas when our farm was buried under two feet of snow, she was snorkeling and swimming at a sandy Melbourne beach. How cool was that?

Turns out even with our obvious geographical differences, we had much in common. My birthday was July 10, hers July 11, one year later. Same astrological sign!

We wrote to each other for years. Faithfully. The sheer anticipation of receiving a letter postmarked Airmail with interesting stamps for my collection was thrilling. When a thick letter arrived filled with pages and pages written in her perfect, neat printing, I skipped supper to read it over and over again. I stayed up late writing my response, hoping my life sounded interesting, knowing my letter, my words would travel over the ocean to a place I could only dream to go.

My penpal was much better than a diary, because she responded. Faithfully. We shared secrets and crazy family stories. We exchanged birthday and Christmas gifts and even had matching necklaces. We discussed boys. Do you think he likes me?

Turns out there was a big world beyond Mississippi County, Arkansas.

And then with no further discussion or thought or final farewell, our correspondence ended. We grew older. We left home. One of us stopped, and the other was too busy to be concerned. Had I known my last letter was the final one, I may have said something important. But probably not.

I’ve often wondered what happened to Anne Cardow. I ran across her picture a few weeks ago in my desk drawer at home in Arkansas. I still have some of her letters written in perfect, neat printing.

Are you still out there Anne? It’s me, Talya.I’m still here.