CAMAS — Jeff Weiss was eager to connect with loved ones overseas in a way that required no electronics.
He was temporarily living in Germany and working for a startup software company. He was eager to stay in touch with folks back home. But he was loathe to go from working all day in front of a computer to attempting to relax afterward in front of a computer.
“I spent so much time in front of screens already,” he said. “What I wanted was an opportunity to disconnect from screens and reconnect with people.”
The solution Weiss found seems almost impossibly quaint, slow and “IRL” (in real life) in today’s virtually connected, speed-of-byte, Zooming-along world: He picked up a fountain pen and started writing postcards. And sticking stamps on them and sending them by snail mail, just the way people have been doing since the late 1800s.
“I’m a tactile person. I find writing by hand meditative,” Weiss said. “I have only one thing to do while I’m writing a letter or postcard.”
Postcards — perhaps you’ve heard of them? They were all the rage about a century ago, until innovations like the telephone and eventually the internet overtook them as a handy and personal way to communicate.
But not for Weiss, who has mailed and received thousands of postcards over the past four years, to and from people all over the world. When he has free time he might send three or four per day. When he’s busier, it might be a half-dozen over the weekend. Now, Weiss is looking forward to a seasonal gathering with like-minded local scribes to celebrate their favorite informal holiday: Oct. 1, World Postcard Day.
Buying a fountain pen in Germany is how Weiss’ postcard pastime began. Fountain pens are more common in Europe than they are in the United States, he said, and seemed to be for sale everywhere he went. He gave one a try.
“I was immediately taken with how much smoother it was to write with, requiring almost zero pressure,” Weiss said.
What started out a whimsical pursuit for Weiss — using his dreamy new pen to delight friends and family with beautiful personal letters, thank-you notes and wedding congratulations — grew into a passion, he said.
“Using a fountain pen ensures that I slow down,” he said. “It is a moment to be present and enjoy the experience, rather than a chore I’m rushing to complete.”
Friendly strangers
OK, today’s technology does underlie Weiss’ old-school pursuit after all. In January 2020, while he was in Germany, Weiss found his way to Postcrossing.com, a free internet-based system that generates postcard connections between people all over the globe. Postcrossing was launched in 2005 by a Portuguese student with a pretty common whim: He enjoyed getting personal mail and wanted to get more.
Postcrossing randomly connects complete strangers, often but not always in different countries, who sign up and provide a little personal information and a mailing address. (It’s fine to use a post office box to maintain your privacy and security.) When you join, you’re given one far-flung addressee to write to (along with a Postcrossing ID number). When your first addressee receives your first postcard and confirms it in the system, you become an addressee, too. Now you’ll start receiving as many cards as you send, which can be a lot.
You can have as many as 100 postcards traveling in the mail at one time. The Postcrossing system tracks and manages the flow of cards so the system stays in balance.
Postcrossing.com has 804,000 members in 208 nations and territories, and has facilitated the delivery of nearly 80 million postcards total. The rate of postcard arrival is nearly 1,000 per hour, according to the website.
Postcrossing greetings are almost always one-way, one-off connections, Weiss emphasized. Postcrossing is not like having a pen pal, so don’t expect any reply from the individuals you write to (other than online confirmation that your card arrived). But you will start hearing from other friendly strangers.
Each postcard is its own pleasant surprise, Weiss said. You never know what’s going to arrive from where.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, Weiss said, his own postcards are as simple as this:
“Hi, (NAME), greetings from the beautiful Pacific Northwest! I’m at my son’s baseball practice trying to stay warm and dry, even though it doesn’t rain here as much as advertised. My favorite board game is Ticket to Ride, and we play a cutthroat family game every Sunday. Happy Postcrossing! —Jeff.”
Why bother mentioning that he’s languishing at an after-school activity? Because that’s the kind of slice of life any parent, anywhere, can relate to, Weiss said. Such low-key personal connections help make the world a kinder place, he said.
“When I receive a postcard, I know that the sender sat down and wrote it with intention, with me in mind. The paper, stamps and ink are physical manifestations of their gift of time,” he said. “It’s a sense of connection, however fleeting and random.”
While it’s OK to practice your foreign-language skills in postcards, as Weiss likes to do with German, Postcrossing recommends English as the language to use for easiest universal communication.
Weiss said at last count in early September, after four-plus years of Postcrossing, he’s mailed nearly 1,900 postcards and received nearly 1,800, to and from people in 68 different nations.
“Including San Marino,” he added. “Which to be honest, prior to receiving the postcard, I don’t think I knew even existed.”
San Marino, Weiss learned, is a micro-state of about 34,000 people that’s landlocked inside of northern Italy.
That’s part of the point of Postcrossing, he said: expanding your horizons and friendly feelings toward far-flung people you don’t know, maybe never even heard of.
“Learning about other cultures, learning to be patient, seeing the regional differences in people’s script, the various stamps,” Weiss said. “There are so many amazing aspects that I enjoy.”
Some Postcrossing members do get into genuine back-and-forth conversation, which the system calls “direct swaps.” That’s at their own discretion and isn’t managed or tracked by Postcrossing. When one Postcrosser wrote about her daughter’s cancer diagnosis and treatment, Weiss took the extra step of replying with a few words of comfort and compassion, he said.
“Many of life’s struggles are universal, regardless of geography, culture or language,” he said. “We’re not alone in our problems and we can support each other, even in passing interactions from thousands of miles away.”
Postcard history
People have been sending simple, single-sheet messages through the mail ever since mail was invented, but there was always a drawback: whatever you wrote wasn’t private. That’s why advertising seemed appropriate for cards, rather than anything personal or sensitive.
It wasn’t until the mid-1800s that postcards as we know them came into existence. Austria was the first country to sell a pre-stamped postal card in 1868. Within a few years, blizzards of postcards were traveling back and forth all over the globe.
By the turn of the 20th century the picture postcard was enjoying a golden age — driven by affordable mail delivery (postcard rate was one penny in the U.S.), the growth of photography and printing and even the 1889 completion of the Eiffel Tower, a modern marvel that sparked its own photo-card craze. In the U.S. alone, at least 1 billion postcards were exchanged annually from 1905 to 1915.
But the global disruption of World War I and the arrival of the telephone undermined the postcard, and its popularity has waxed and waned ever since. In the 1950s, glossy “chrome” photos of vacation destinations drove a postcard resurgence. The arrival of social media has curtailed postcard use again.
Weiss and a handful of local Postcrossing friends are doing their darndest to revive it. He participates in periodic meetups where postcard people make “IRL” friends while sitting down to write to far-flung strangers. In honor of World Postcard Day 2020, Weiss donated 100 postcards from Pendleton Woolen Mill, plus the necessary postage, to fifth-grade classes at Prune Hill Elementary School in Camas.
“The staff worked it into the lessons and the students sent the postcards to whomever they liked,” he said.
Local postcards
Currently it costs 56 cents to mail a standard-size postcard domestically. The cost to send the same postcard internationally is $1.65. Standard size means 4-by-6 inches. Larger postcards cost more.
Weiss economizes by periodically stocking up on rolls or sheets of international stamps (prices seem to go up semi-annually, he said) as well as bunches or boxes of local picture postcards.
“I always get funny looks from the cashiers (at Fred Meyer) when I buy 20 Mount St. Helens postcards at a time,” he said.
Delivery of a postcard can take days or even weeks if it’s international. You’ll know your postcard arrived when your addressee confirms receipt online. That’s the patience piece, Weiss said.
Because of geopolitics and postal service disruptions, there are a handful of nations where American mail won’t go, including Russia, Belarus, Afghanistan, Yemen and Sudan. Weiss said he’s gotten around this by mailing from overseas while on vacation.
What should the picture side of a Postcrossing postcard show? Keeping it friendly and inoffensive is key. Points-of-interest and local-pride photos always reign supreme. Weiss has received handmade cards that are everything from dainty watercolor paintings to cut-up cardboard cereal boxes, he said.
“I’m excited about the new Agatha Christie book covers set that recently arrived,” he said.
Here are some local sources of postcards that show Clark County pride:
