Low tech postcards retain their modern appeal
DUBLIN — During my backpacking heyday in the early 1980s, staying in touch with friends and family in Boston as I roamed across Europe was hard work. I couldn’t pop into an Internet cafe for a reassuring exchange of e-mails, and I certainly couldn’t pull out a cellphone and text or ring home. Those outlets just weren’t an option because they had yet to appear on the international travel scene.
Instead, my preferred mode of trans-Atlantic communication all those years ago was the humble postcard.
Ignoring Garrison Keillor’s advice that the ideal postcard shouldn’t exceed 50 words, I attempted to turn mine into miniature travelogues, regularly crossing over to the address side to accommodate my glittering insights. I kept an intermittent journal while I traveled, and in its back pages I sketched out notes for my postcards home. Reading them now, it’s clear I should have followed Keillor’s cardinal rule.
Of course, what I wrote in my rambling reports was beside the point. There was a more subtle subtext.
By sending a postcard of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London or the Ponte Vecchio in Florence, I was in effect proclaiming myself a citizen of the world, while at the same time reassuring my friends and family that I hadn’t forgotten where I came from.
I had another reason for gathering up postcards along the way. To record my travels in photographic form, I arranged an extended loan of my sister Susan’s Vivitar C-135 camera, a fine piece of equipment in its day but now seen as a technological relic. As those of us who came of age in the predigital era can attest, the odds of capturing a viable image with such a device were 50-50 at best.
Being neither a capable photographer nor a gambling man, I decided to hedge my bets and made sure to buy a few postcards wherever I happened to visit. As a result, in a back bedroom closet I still have some lovely images, captured on postcards, of Barcelona Cathedral, the Stormont Buildings in Belfast (home to the Northern Ireland Assembly), and the Church of the Salute in Venice.
Closer to my adopted home, I have some wonderful depictions of Cork City at night as well as the ancient monastic ruins at Glendalough in Wicklow — each purchased when I was a tourist in these parts.
In the same stash I have a postcard with an intriguing aerial view of my hometown of Medford. My family home on Corey Street isn’t visible in the photo, but if you look closely you can spot the basketball court at Barry Park, and my friend Dan Creedon’s house just across the street. I remember buying this particular memento for 10 cents off a souvenir rack at Murray’s Stationery in Medford Square. Even with today’s sophisticated cameras, such snapshots remain beyond my meager talents.
Without doubt, though, I picked up my most meaningful postcard in 1986 on the east coast of Sicily, in the small town of Augusta, where my paternal grandparents were born. While I was there on a surprise visit, having dropped in on my father’s uncle, Francesco, and his family out of the blue, I found an oversize black-and-white postcard of the church where my grandparents were married before they sailed for Boston.
As soon as I saw it, I knew that I’d discovered something special. When I returned to Medford three months later, I had the postcard mounted and framed, as a gift to my father.
Postcards are still available in many retail shops, although I suspect that with Facebook and Twitter offering instant communication, they’re not an essential travel item the way they once were.
In my world, though, postcards will always have a prized place, helping me to remember where I’ve been — and where I’ve come from.
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