From Out of the Past, a Very Special Delivery

So, I thought, standing at my mailbox, how many bills did I get today? How much junk mail? How many “free” gift offers of land in Florida or a burial plot in Western Maryland?

Nowadays, more often than not, it is extremely irksome to go through one’s mail: Letter-writing has all but vanished from the culture (today Elizabeth Barrett Browning would fax her letters to Robert and he would answer her via his cellular car phone), and so have thank-you notes and most other civilized forms of personal mail.

Today would be no different, I noted, as I riffled through the glossy Christmas catalogues, supermarket offerings and missives addressed either to “Occupant” or someone named Mrs. Frances Sweeney. (I have gotten certain of Mrs. Sweeney’s mail for the last 10 years; I can only assume she was the Occupant who occupied my house before my moving in.)

But then I saw it: Tucked between the House of Foam catalogue and the 50-cents-off-a-large-pizza coupon was this plain, Manila-colored post card--the kind you buy from the post office for strictly utilitarian purposes. The small, cramped handwriting on the back looked vaguely familiar to me. No. Suddenly it looked very familiar to me.

It was, in fact, my son’s handwriting.

I quickly turned the post card over and saw my son had sent it from Cabin 12 of Camp Minnehaha, located in Minnehaha Springs, W.Va. Now, receiving this post card was quite a shock to me because this particular son is currently attending college in New England. In fact I had talked to him just that morning and he had made no mention of having transferred from Williams College to Cabin 12 at Camp Minnehaha.

My eyes moved to the postmark. It was dated June 28, 1980.

1980! Huh?

I sucked in my breath. Was I caught in some kind of strange time warp? Or was I traveling, no, hurtling, back into a time zone where I was younger, my kids were younger and life was slow and oh so mellow?

Naaaaahhhh.

It was just the post office again, doing what they do. Whatever that is.

But I did feel a little bit like Nancy Drew as I studied the mysterious post card. I analyzed it sort of the way Nancy might have analyzed the Clue in the Crumbling Wall. Or the Mystery of the Brass-Bound Trunk. I noted that the post card was in pristine condition. No signs of having been folded, mutilated or kicked around in bad weather. The semi-hard Manila paper showed not the least sign of wear.

Next, I observed that there were no additional postmarks on the card. Just June 28, 1980.

Perhaps I would find a clue in the message penned on the back. (As I recall, that’s how Nancy Drew cracked the Secret at Larkspur Lane.) Here’s some of what was written on the postcard. Only the name of my son has been changed and some parts deleted, to protect the innocent:

“Dear Mom,

“People in my cabin are very nice and everyone has a nickname. One nickname for a kid named Brian is Bubbles. I thought I had lost my baseball glove but I found it after being VERY scared. I don’t need soap anymore, but if you’ve already sent it, I could always use more. I do need that mess kit though.

“David and I are going to play golf after rest period. My cabin is in an uproar right now because my counselor isn’t here. I got two of your letters. Do the cats miss me? Today is Friday and camp is almost 1/4 over. I’ve gotten to sleep real well except for 1 night. Have you gotten my other two letters?

“Love, Max.”

I can tell you I felt a lot of things as I read this 9-year-old postcard from an 11-year-old boy who figures quite prominently in my life. And one was the dissolving of time. Someone once pointed out, or maybe I made it up myself, that memory is nothing more than the daring rearrangement of time in the imagination. Nothing more than a reordering of experience and observation.

And so it was that time rearranged itself daringly as I read the tiny, familiar handwriting: I saw with vivid clarity the 11-year-old boy boarding the bus with his friend, David, setting out for the unknown; for this place far away in West Virginia called Camp Minnehaha. They both hated the name.

I felt both happy and sad reading the post card, that bittersweet combination of feelings that becomes a more frequent visitor as you grow older. But above all, I felt deeply grateful to the United States Postal Service for giving me back--temporarily, at least--my son at the wonderful, sweet, tender, funny, unforgettable age of 11.