I just got the coolest thing!

Very cool!

You said its therapeutic , but how does it the hands feel?

I struggle with function due to busting bones/fingers and some pretty nasty wounds over the years. They are getting worse and worse at a rapid pace, maybe this would help restore some dexterity?

Anyways, I would love to get a letter with a wax stamp from a redneck in the sticks- albeit with a request.

After moving up to our current home 5 years ago, my son doesn't get much social interaction with enough people. outside of school/church , or hanging out with me, as we are rural.

He would be thrilled to receive a letter from a real life western cowboy.

He's 11, and loves the outdoors, shooting, foraging and exploring.

It would be cool for him to have someone to interact with in the old traditional way.

Good excuse to pick up some wax and fancy paper, and make a personalized seal with him.

P.m. me if that sounds like something you'd get a kick out of.

a reply to: Notoneofyou

I don't think there's a bone in either of my hands I haven't broken or mangled somehow. Yes, it does help with dexterity some, but you don't use a lot of individual finger dexterity, more all in unison. One of the things I've found is, writing really helps with hand-mind-eye coordination. This seems especially true with cursive or script writing, and even more so with fountain pens and ink. Your mind moves at one speed (fast), and your hand at a different speed (slow) and your eye attempts to coordinate the two. Mentally you're 2-3 sentences or more out in front of where you are on paper. Plus, mentally you have a theme you are trying to convey (so the overall picture) and break it down into paragraph structure. All of this is going on inside your head while your hand is trying to get the thought to paper.

After not having written longhand letters for a long time (mainly just note taking at work) what I found is I had gotten sloppy at coordinating what was going on in my mind versus what I was writing. And, in some cases, my hand would just lock up (or write some crazy jibberish). It forced me to concentrate on what I was doing, right at that moment, with my hand.

The other thing writing helps with is forming complete thoughts and sentences. At the end of the day, you want each paragraph to contain an idea, and to complete the snippet of that idea in that paragraph. Then move on to the next.

So yes, overall it is very therapeutic on a number of levels. I think it helps with mental acuity, hand-eye-mind coordination and just general focus overall.

I'd be delighted to send your son a letter. I might even have a story or two to tell him about the Old West (which I am very familiar with).

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

When I was in high school and just started college I would write a lot of handwritten notes. Like you, I always used a fountain pen. It was, and still is, my favorite pen. The only downside to fountain ink is that if it ever gets wet, it runs. :/ When sitting in bars writing poetry and songs I always had my fountain pen and black unlined sketch pad for writing. Hell, I would even write most stories in long hand, then have to type them out.

I don't write too many actual letters now, but I will write handwritten notes from time to time on special occasions, usuing either acid-free sketch paper or decorative paper from a hobby store.

That's pretty awesome you use parchment and a wax seal. What exactly is the seal, is it significant to you? Back in the day I thought of using wax seals, because I was into historic items and processes, but never really had the means.

Have you ever tried making your own paper? I have bought a few leather-bound journals with homemade paper in them.

Love to see some of your paper/letters/seal...and handwriting.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Does the post office have to hand cancel the stamps on your wax sealed envelopes?

They use those fancy machines that use a computer to read handwritten addresses and they fly through those machines really fast. I wonder if the wax could gum up the works?

originally posted by: F2d5thCavv2
I think it is neat how many people in this thread expressed interest in becoming a pen pal.

We lost something in the transition from the handwritten word, methinks.

Cheers

My handwriting looks like chicken scratching.
Guess most of you'all have good handwriting. the harder i try the worse it gets, older I get the worse it gets.

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

Man, you hit the nail on the head.

Being a carpenter and logger for 25 years, my handwriting/penmanship went completely to hell. Using nothing but hashmarks and scribbling short-handed notes only I can read hasn't helped either.

We'll have to see if I can't get eyes and hands and brain to work as a team again. I'm sure the wife will get a kick out watching me attempt to use the written language again, as she's convinced I'm somewhere between caveman and sasquatch.

And that's really awesome of you to write to my boy, he will flip his lid when he sees an official cowboy letter all fancy with a real seal.
It'll be good for his penmanship as well, as schools dont teach alot of cursive/script anymore.
It just might be the spark he needs.

Thanks again.

a reply to: butcherguy

Not that I'm aware of. I just stick them in any old mailbox and the go through with all the other mail.

I once ran the cancelling machine at the local Terminal Annex. I cancelled the mail for all the 983 and 984 zipcodes, about a quarter of the state: Tacoma and the entire Olympic Peninsula. The machine cancels 600 letters a minute, and when there is something thick in a letter, like coins, for example, it will jam and the resulting explosion is epic. On one explosion I found a live .22 round had caused it. If you take a good look at a standard envelope, there are four ways it can face the stamp. The cancelling mechanism can whack these four corners pretty hard, then transfer the envelope to one of five bins so they wind up faced for the "primers" who do the first sort. The fifth bin is for screw-ups. The middle of the envelope, where a typical seal would reside, is usually safe from the "whackers."

Hand cancelling is only for letters that simply won't go through the machine and can be more brutal than the machine itself. You find these on a hand pre-sort where the job is to run your hands over all the letters on a conveyor in an attempt to find the ones with bulges. Obviously, this pre-sort doesn't catch everything. They then go through the "Bubbleator" to put them in a row in preparation for putting them in the input of the cancelling machine. A wax seal is not enough to justify hand cancelling.

a reply to: schuyler

You know, a lot of people complain about the federal government (and I'm one of them), but the USPS is one of the best deals we American's have!

They truly are heroes in my book, and there's not a better deal out there!

a reply to: Flyingclaydisk

I would like a letter. Don't know what it may be about but, I have enjoyed your past post's.

One thing I would like is some letters from some of our international ATS community outside of the USA.

That would be cool.

originally posted by: Flyingclaydisk
a reply to: schuyler

You know, a lot of people complain about the federal government (and I'm one of them), but the USPS is one of the best deals we American's have!

They truly are heroes in my book, and there's not a better deal out there!

There is a lot of unwarranted criticism of the USPS. The USPS is really FN efficient for what they deal with and how timely they are.

And I've defended them here before.