postcards {the real kind}

I found these little treasures at an estate sale in our neighborhood.  Delightful, don't you think?

I wanted to buy the entire shoe box-full, but instead had to settle for the handful that I found most intriguing.  Intrigued by the pictures, by the colors, intrigued by the descriptions on the back.  Who knew the New Jersey Turnpike had such enticing entrance and exit ramps for easy traffic flow?  Postcard worthy I say.

And Club 31.  Easily one of my favorites, with that just-so kitchen gleaming in its pink floor glory.

Several of the postcards fold open to reveal an entire accordion of pictures inside, giving the recipient more than just one little glimpse of the destination.  Fabulous!

All of these post cards are blank, so they seem to have been purchased as souvenirs.  A lifetime of travels to many different places, stored in a shoe box.  I wonder about those trips and the travelers.  What was experienced that can't be shown in a post card.  I wonder if those travelers ever took out that shoe box and traveled in time and memory back to those countless places.  I wonder.

As I look at, and especially touch, these little gems I hope that post cards as we know them don't disappear.  That they don't become artifacts of history, found only at flea markets and the Smithsonian.  I hope that even in this day of tweeting your current location and sending an Instagram picture to a gazillion followers that there is still room for postcards.  To smell the scent of hand-delivered mail and to feel the texture of a postcard that has, itself, made a trip.  A trip from there to here.


:: I want to mail one of the special accordion postcards to a lucky reader.  Leave a comment for your chance to receive it! ::