For almost a year now, I’ve been actively soliciting Internet strangers to send me a postcard (in addition to the usual ways of contacting me, via comments or email). I had no idea it would be so-successful: I’ve received a postcard almost every month! I’ve been keeping them in a mildly-interactive gallery if you’d like to see.
Today was novel, though. Today, for the first time, I received a postcard from somebody… whom I can’t identify.
The postcard is from “Tony”. So I can identify them that far. But… who the heck is Tony‽
In the case of every previous postcard I’ve received, it’s been somebody I’ve been able to “trace”: either because they’ve previously left a comment on my blog, or emailed me, or we’ve moved in the same circles of a (relatively small community) website, or they’ve included a URL or some other way to “find” them.
This one though, is a mystery.
Let me tell you my favourite thing about this postcard, though: it taught me something cool. The postcard is made out of the (billingual) outer packaging of some kind of MRE/boil-in-the-bag ration pack, and Tony tells me that when they were in the Canadian armed forces, their unit would send postcards like this “back home”: written directly onto the packaging.
How neat! If I had a family member in the services, it’d be neat to get a postcard from wherever they were deployed that not only told me how they were doing… but as a side-effect what they’d been having for dinner. It’s cute.
If you’re out there Tony, feel free to say hi in the comments or email, too. And thanks for the card!
Before reading the details of the post card, I almost thought that handwriting was that of my father-in-law Tony. While he lives here in Canada (came here from the UK in the 70s) and sends postcards, he never served in the military (here or in UK). So guess it isn’t him.
Love that this Tony used the MRE packaging as part of the story behind the post card though. So very cool.
Good day! Thanks for the extra attention! I’m not in your “postcard borg” because I only just discovered your site before I sent the card :) VERY thumbnail sketch: retiree living in central Canada, with some time spent working in the Canadian military (part-time, like the UK Territorial Army, aka Army Reserve these days from what I understand), journalism and the public service. I like the idea of hard-copy snail mail (even though I don’t send it as often as I’d like), which is why I was driven to drop you a line in this kinda-different way. When I was still serving the Queen in uniform part-time, we’d even send promotional cardboard drink coasters this way as a way to share our adventures through the mail. Keep up the great work spreading the gospel of short-form snail mail, and have a great rest of the week!
OMG amazing! Thanks for turning up and introducing yourself!