A Letter-Writing Feat That’s One for the Book: Keeping Up With 665 Pen Pals

Writing in longhand lends that personal touch, but to 665 pen pals?

“I’m an awful typist,” explained Julie A. Naughton, 17, of Mission Viejo, who plans to submit her massive letter-writing effort to the Guinness Book of World Records, which currently lists 275 pen pals as the record.

While setting the world record would be an accomplishment for the Capistrano High School senior who often writes 10 letters a day and has received as many as 20 letters in one day, “Learning about the different cultures of my pen pals is more important,” said Julie, who plans a career in journalism or medicine.

“I haven’t met any of my pen pals,” Julie said, adding that 90% of the 14- to 18-year-olds to whom she writes live in European countries and some of their mail is censored. “A lot of the countries, like East Germany and Russia, open the mail and cross out what they don’t want said. I know there are a lot of things they’d like to say, but can’t.”

Even for those who can write without censorship, she said, “there’s a lot of misconceptions about their countries and before I started to write, I had a lot of wrong ideas and made generalizations about them. Writing helped me understand them.”

The text of most letters she receives deals with life in the pen pals’ country, their free time, their school system and family life.

“I think most of them haven’t experienced any other way of life and while it may be terrific to them, it might not be for me,” said Julie, who spends her free time reading and cooking, although she belongs to many school clubs and works at a fast-food counter at school to pay for postage stamps.

“I’m afraid to tally what I spend for stamps,” she said, noting that it costs 22 cents to send mail in the United States and 44 cents to foreign destinations. She attempts to send a reply the same day she receives a letter.

But most of all, Julie said, “I really enjoy writing.” She said she started five years ago by securing names from pen pal agencies, magazines with pen pal columns, and friends of friends. All pen pals have been categorized on file cards and in a computer.

“My very best friend is a pen pal in Florida,” Julie said. “It’s scary, but we sound so much alike when we write each other.” They’re hoping to meet this summer.

Lots of policemen make sergeant during their career, like Brea officer Douglas P. Dickerson, 31, who recently qualified first of 15 applicants for the position.

But Dickerson also is known for another accomplishment. Ten years earlier, he set the Orange County Sheriff’s Academy record for doing 6,033 sit-ups in one sitting. It took him seven hours to set the record which still stands, er . . . sits.

Thankfully for new deputies-in-training, the academy now only keeps record of sit-ups done in four minutes.

Civilian educator William S. Caldwell, 65, of Mission Viejo just returned from a three-month duty tour to Japan, Africa and Australia aboard the guided missile cruiser Vincennes and gave high marks to everything, including the food.

“The food was absolutely super,” said Caldwell, who conducted college political science courses as well as English grammar and composition classes aboard the ship. “I have never eaten better food over any extended period of time.”

The idea behind the shipboard classes, said Caldwell, a former World War II Army officer, “is really threefold: help retain men in the Navy, help them advance while in service, and give those leaving the service a better start to further their education.”

The college classes are taught during off-duty time and offered free through Programs Afloat College Eduction, a San Diego school program. During work time, he teaches classes of up to 15 students on communication skills. “Navy men need to strengthen the way they communicate with each other since their words can be so important during a crisis situation.”

He said Vincennes personnel are perhaps a cut above others because of the sensitive operation of the ship, which carried out maneuvers with vessels from other nations, occasionally encountering Soviet ships.

Would he go back for another tour? “I would but I’m planning on getting married,” the semi-retired Caldwell said.

When Brooklyn College graduate Seymour H. Liff of Santa Ana was asked why, in heaven’s name, would the college’s Alumni Assn. hold a reunion in California, the Northrop engineer had a ready response: “It’s God’s country, isn’t it?” He said 104 made reservations for the reunion today at Amfac Hotel in Westchester.