Do You Remember the Humble Picture Postcard?

Does it have a future or is it redundant?

When we travel, either Mo or I take the photos, sometimes, they’re selfies, and he invariably posts them on Facebook so our friends can keep up with our travels. It’s just as well that he does because if it were left up to me, the best they could hope for would be a call on my cell phone to say that I’m home.

The truth is obvious. Modern cell phones are a quick, easy, and convenient way to let people know where you are, where you’ve been, who you’ve met, and any other news. They’ve replaced what was once a tedious, soul-destroying obligation. I’m referring to the picture postcard.

I was introduced to that holiday ritual at an early age. I can even recall the very first card that I wrote and sent. It was to my Gran, telling her I was having lots of fun staying with my cousins. If I remember correctly, the card might have featured a color picture of New Forest Ponies.

That began what became an expectation whenever I went on holiday. I’d dutifully buy my picture postcards and stamps. I’ll admit here and now that making the purchase was easy. The aspect of the tradition I dreaded was sacrificing the time to sit down and write the bloody things.

Let’s face it, a colonoscopy’s more fun than writing postcards on your vacation. As a writer, I know what it’s like to get writer’s block. But how come I suffer it whenever, with pen in hand, I sit with a stack of postcards to write?

It’s not as if I needed to say much, and I think it was one of those customs where the thought was what counted. The small space they allowed you to use for the message precluded anything like the Ten Commandments or Gone with the Wind.

Also, I discovered a way to cheat by making my writing bigger. It was amazing how quickly you ran out of empty space doing that. Of course, sending a card to my Gran, I couldn’t do that to her. She’d have been disappointed, and I’d have felt guilty.

I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that it would take me all morning to finish them — a morning when I could have been doing a thousand other fun things.

What got me was knowing that whoever you sent them to would take a minute to read them and ten seconds to look at the picture. That done, they’d be stuck on the mantelpiece and remain there until somebody dusted and chucked the postcards in the trash.

Bugger it! All that work and money you’d spent on the cards and stamps, and for what?

We’re in 2022, and I cannot remember when either Mo or I last received a picture postcard. Do people still send them? They must do because I’ve seen them on sale. Are they reserved for the truly old or people who lack the technical savvy to use a cell phone?

How long is the picture postcard likely to survive? You might say that postcards were once a form of social media before the digital age, but now they’ve outlived their use.

No doubt there are people out there who reject the intrusion of the mobile phone.

There are families where those minicomputers control every aspect of their daily life. I even keep my shopping list on the device. Its calendar governs my day, and I’ve linked it to my partner’s phone and our home computers to synchronize every minute of our schedules.

Am I pathetic for surrendering my life to technology?

When I saw the Terminator movie back in 1984, I thought having a machine-controlled world was too far-fetched to be believable.

Now we’re in 2022, and people willingly allow cell phones to control their daily lives. If they lose or have an accident with their device, it’s a disaster of the greatest magnitude — they cannot survive without it. Forget having food on the table, African famines, or a doctor’s appointment. A replacement phone is more urgent than anything else could ever be.

Maybe the world was better when we went on vacation and wrote the humble postcard.

It was a pain in the ass doing it, but perhaps it was more personal because of that. Okay, the cell phone uses Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and all the other programs to do the same thing instantly — but is it personal enough? Did it require time and effort to reach out to each of your friends?

Perhaps there’s still a place for the good old picture postcard. Maybe receiving one handwritten from someone you’ve not spoken to for a long time might mean more than a Facebook post. It would be more personal. You’d possibly even call them when you get home.

We might be in the digital age, but there’s nothing wrong with some nostalgic longing for the sound of the postman and the anticipation of the wait to see what he has in his bag for us. Maybe there’d be a postcard or two.