Blast from the Past

Over the past few months my grandmother has been going through some of the things she has kept from her children's lives. Given that she had five children, I am willing to bet that she has lots of memories tucked away!

She found a box of letters my dad wrote home while he was away at college and law school. She gave them to him and he, in turn, sent a few my way - I was dying to get a sense of what he was like as a younger man!

Most of the missives were the usual fare - updates about schoolwork and roommates, requests for money and arrangements for visits.

What really caught my eye was my dad's resourcefulness. Many of his letters were written on the back of scrap paper - presumably from the library waste bin - and he even crafted an envelope out of a page torn from National Geographic Magazine.


If I were to do that today, you readers would assume I was being crafty or trying to be green. Which, inadvertently he was, but it was mostly because he was a poor student and envelopes cost money.

His money-saving technique is so clever I might have to recreate it for my next stationery project!