We used to write letters

It was not until the last year in senior high that our class boasted a cellphone. The owner was a son of a local steel baron. We depended on letters and payphones to keep in touch with friends in other schools. It is an experience that I miss frequently. The school designated an office to receive letters from the post office nearby and appointed several students to deliver the letters to classrooms. Inner-city letters took two or three days to arrive in the right hands. They came and went almost everyday. The letters were often dropped down on the front desks near the door. The boy sitting there would cry out the names of the recipient. Anyone who was called would rush to get it. And the joy would double if the recipient happened to get more than one on the same day.

I was a major correspindent back then. Having friends scattered at several other schools, letters became the only way to keep in touch. Shortly after I took to writing letters, I began

to collect stamps, the ones that I carefully ripped off the letters I received. There was a boy in our class who specialised in removing the tape mark from the stamps. Some classmates reused these stamps and they managed to get away with it.

We always wrote the letters during intervals between classes or took them to the dorm. In fact, most of my letters were written in bed under the light of a dim flashlight. Never would we postponed replying a letter for we knew how it felt waiting on one.

The only treasure box that I keep is the one filled with letters. I feel lucky that cellphone did not intrude my life back then. Children who thump their time away on cellphone will never experience the joy of reading and writing a letter.