[design219]

Not an e-mail, but a letter on paper with a stamp and sent via the postal service. I don't think I've written a letter on paper within the last 10 years. It's a shame...I guess.

I think I'll write to a couple of relatives tomorrow. If I can find some paper. And an envelope. And the post office.

[Cold Warrior]

5 years, as long as we don't count birthday cards.

[turtle777]

A couple of "Get Well" cards in the past year. Not real letters though.

-t

[chris v]

I typed a quick letter to a medical company the other week, concerning the sorry state of my insurance company, and their lack of desire to pay the medical company for what they were rightfully owed under the terms of my insurance plan. The last time I hand-wrote a letter was fan mail to Kurt Vonnegut back in 1999. He didn't answer.

[Atomic Rooster]

I really don't remember. I was never much of a letter writer even before the interwebs. I had huge phone bills.

[angelmb]

Last week and did it on style, a nice papyrus-like envelope and expensive Garda Cartiere (italian) paper.

[Oisín]

On Wednesday. Wasn’t hand-written, but it was in an envelope with a stamp and stuff. Actually, it was just a cover letter for sending out a death certificate. But still a letter.

Last time I’ve sent out a ‘real’ letter from myself, rather than from work, is about six months ago: my application for the IT University.

[Railroader]

I can't remember. And I am a little disappointed by that. Either my memory is failing or I am losing the personal touch that a letter emits.

[Faust]

A few months ago. My printer was defect.

[SpaceMonkey]

All the time for business purposes, almost never in my personal life.

[Doofy]

15 years ago?

Even then, it was printed on a dot matrix. I can't even read my handwriting, so I don't expect other people to be able to.

[brassplayersrock²]

when I helped someone write their DNR

[Shaddim]

Yesterday. I have older friends, 70+ years old, who prefer getting physical mail.

It's wonderful, really. I love getting snail mail correspondence, more care seems to go into it.

[Laminar]

Originally Posted by brassplayersrock² 

when I helped someone write their DNR

They weren't satisfied with the quality of their state parks?

I sent several of my friends handwritten cards on Valentine's Day. Before that, I can't remember.

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by Shaddim 

Yesterday. I have older friends, 70+ years old, who prefer getting physical mail.

It's wonderful, really. I love getting snail mail correspondence, more care seems to go into it.

Ah! Thanks for triggering my memory. It is my memory going bad.

I wrote my Great-Aunt a hand-written letter just before Christmas. She replied with an email.

[Atheist]

I can't remember when I last wrote a letter.

I'm with Doofy on this one... my handwriting has gotten so poor I can hardly read it myself.

[mduell]

Thursday.

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by mduell 

Thursday.

What YEAR ?

-t

[LegendaryPinkOx]

Once every few months. Most of the time its just random stuff. The last one I got was my friend trying to prove a correlation between the size of a person's chin and whether or not that person makes a good leader. Its almost always random crap. I refuted from the office of beards (i.e. return address) that it is in fact beards that make a good leader, and therefore this study of chins is in violation of beard code 26893-D. And that all studies should cease immediately pending "bad stuff." Uhmm. lets see, another was a Ray Johnson inspired "Moticos" letter to my friend Melany.

It's just more flattering to see that a person went through the trouble to mail something to you. Even if it's only like 42¢ It's garaunteed to bring a smile anyway.

Facebook is so... blah.

[KeriVit]

I write to my grandmother pretty regularly. She's deaf (as in since birth) and I really don't like calling her through the relay system.

[EndlessMac]

I never was much of a letter writer before the internet and now with email I basically never write letters anymore. It's been several years since my last paper letter.

[euchomai]

Originally Posted by KeriVit 

I write to my grandmother pretty regularly. She's deaf (as in since birth) and I really don't like calling her through the relay system.

My family is deaf too, uncle and dad. Since I learned sign language I figured I'd work for the relay guys. I work for Sorenson, they pay well and have a great work environment. Plus I only have to work a few hours a week.

Back on topic... I think I wrote a letter to some girl that I met at church camp when I was about 16, that would be 16 years ago. I do write handwritten thank you cards to people quite frequently, but those aren't "letters". My handwriting is going downhill very quickly.

[l008com]

Wrote a letter to the Jury Commissioner to find out when my Jury duty really was, because every week they would send me something new, with a new time and location on it. In the end they didn't need me at all. And I never got a reply from my letter. Oh well.

[mduell]

Originally Posted by turtle777 

What YEAR ?

Last week. Nothing better to do on a flight to Phoenix.

[andreas_g4]

Last Year to my grandmother. Wrote her a post card the day before yesterday from Stockholm. She's 89, so it's quite a happening for her. I guess I'll write a letter in a few weeks… Thanks for the reminder.

[Dakar the Fourth]

I think it was to myself, my freshman year of high school. Obviously, it was an assignment.

[funkboy]

I write at least a couple post cards on every trip I go on... not exactly letters with a purpose though.

[ghporter]

I used to write formal, business letters at least weekly, but when I retired about three years ago that stopped. Since then, I've written formal letters a few times, with the last time probably as much as a year ago. I'm not counting "what we've done all year" letters that go in Christmas cards-those aren't "letters" as much as newsletters, and all of them are typed. I've also written near-letters in the form of an enclosure in a card, and I think the last time was in January. I'm working hard to NOT let my handwriting crumble into dust, and I hand write notes in class relatively frequently, but I generally don't have what I'd consider the contemplative time needed to write out a formal, personal letter. And is I sent such a letter to the few people with whom I actively stay in contact, they'd be worried that something was wrong! We use the phone (now and then) and email for a lot of that sort of long-distance keeping-in-touch.

[Cipher13]

Honestly, I'm not sure I've ever hand-written a letter. I take notes and scribble on paper, but formal letters? Never.

I did send a postcard from Naples once, but it was blank apart from the address, so I'm not sure that counts.

[ort888]

I wrote an annoyed letter to my favorite sports team complaining about how many games make it on tv. Figured a real letter would get noticed more. That was about 3 months ago. Before that? I guess the thank you cards for my wedding, which was 3 years ago.

[64stang06]

Last Tuesday.

[KenWillFlow]

Probably a few months ago, writing something to my girlfriend.

I guess the follow-up question is: When is the last time you received an actual letter?

[KeriVit]

Originally Posted by euchomai 

My family is deaf too, uncle and dad. Since I learned sign language I figured I'd work for the relay guys. I work for Sorenson, they pay well and have a great work environment. Plus I only have to work a few hours a week.

My grandma just got a Sorenson. Maybe I should give it a try with the new system in place. I don't need any equipment than a phone, right?

(Sorry to be off topic)

[Railroader]

Originally Posted by KenWillFlow 

I guess the follow-up question is: When is the last time you received an actual letter?

Every couple of days. We receive a lot of hand written letters from supporters.

We send out a type written letter every month to supporters.

[Oisín]

My grandma just got a Sorenson.

My grandma used to be a Sorenson (well, a Sørensen) until she got married and became a Jacquet.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

My grandma used to be a Sorenson (well, a Sørensen) until she got married and became a Jacquet.

She became a jacket? Sorry, couldn't resist.

The last time I wrote a letter was a few weeks ago. I wrote to my aunt in Greece. She's 75 years old and doesn't do e-mail. No computer either. I hand write most of my letters to her. It usually takes me a lot longer to write in Greek than it does in English, simply because my hands are more used to writing Latin characters than Greek. But it makes the letters more personal.

[Oisín]

She became a jacket? Sorry, couldn't resist.

’S okay, we’re used to it. Whenever we’re in an English-speaking country, people will invariably pronounce our last name as ‘Jacket’. It’s better than here, where people will completely choke on it and not have a clue how to pronounce it. It’s not that complex.

[RobOnTheCape]

Does anyone else think the lack of letter writing is a serious issue? Besides the fact that I can barely read my writing because everything is on a keyboard, I think about all the letters I used to write. Page upon page of thoughts. I hadn't spoken to a friend of mine for maybe twenty years, and she said she still had my letters. Those letters contained feelings at the time, what I was interested in, what I was mad about at the time, and what my plans were. I have no idea what was in those letters exactly, but the letters still exist, and I suspect those words wouldn't have if they were sent by email just a few years ago.

After reading "John Adams", by David McCullough, I realized just how important these letters are as historical documents. Adams wrote to his wife, his wife to Jefferson and so on, and we have a much clearer pictures of the players and motivations of these people than we would have simply by other sources such as military and political records.

I know some who have organized a "Get out the Pen" movement. I don't think it's moving too fast. But I certainly see a significant loss in our historical record because of this lack of letter writing. Emails tend to be shortened, they stay on the hard drive, and hard drives crash, or when transferring to a new machine the emails will just be forgotten about. The record is gone.

btw - I haven't written a letter in years.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by Oisín 

’S okay, we’re used to it. Whenever we’re in an English-speaking country, people will invariably pronounce our last name as ‘Jacket’. It’s better than here, where people will completely choke on it and not have a clue how to pronounce it. It’s not that complex.

I know the feeling. Our last name is 12 letters long. Even when written out transliterated into English, Greek last names tend to be pronounced as they are spelled.

I loved getting substitute teachers in school. Whenever they would call the roll, they would go down the list, get to my name, and then you got a big pause. Then, "um, er, uh..."

Some would go ahead and try to pronounce it. Some never even tried.

[Oisín]

That was never a problem for me: our school system is a bit different from the US system and students and teachers always call each other by first name, and Janus is quite easy to pronounce (for a Dane, though practically impossible to pronounce [correctly] to anyone else).

[marydore]

Am new to this group but couldn't resist posting to this subject. I am in the process of CLOSING 2 Hallmark stores because of you guys I am not SAD about this though. I send very FEW cards now and I own the stores hehe. I told my family once the stores closed that was it for snail mail - I highly recommend e-cards except for those special grandparents that don't have computers!! Hooray for the internet!

[JoshuaZ]

Last week Thursday. To a girl I fancy in Iowa.

I find them way more romantic. Plus I tend to slow down my though process when writing by hand. (Though I did make a smiley face in the letter at one point. Because I like to be cute.)

I write a ton of post cards as well.

[G4ME]

I send an occasional post card to my girl every now and then, she gets a kick out if it. I also send some chocolates to her work which makes her blush pretty good.

[Dork.]

Do letters that are composed on the computer and then sent via snail-mail (or given to people directly) count? I wrote a ton of letters when I was in the process of looking for a new job and leaving my old one. Most of those letters just got E-mailed as PDF's, but a few (including my actual resignation letter, and my acceptance of the new job offer) were printed, signed, and delivered personally. I believe a formal, well-written cover letter can make a good positive impression whenever you're trying to get people you don't already know to hire you.

I also write a formal letter (composed on the computer), personally signed by me, every time I am disputing something with a vendor or service provider. Basically, I write actual letters when I want to be sure that I have a firm record of whatever it is I sent. Letter-writing is still a good skill to have, even if very few people do it longhand anymore.

I think the last time I sent a personal letter through the mail was when I was back home during summer break from college, and did not have access to my E-mail (because nobody had E-mail outside of Universities, a few businesses or Compuserve....)

[design219]

Originally Posted by marydore 

I am in the process of CLOSING 2 Hallmark stores because of you guys

Glad our indifference could help.