(Click image to see the 2nd post card)
FOUND by Felix van Nostram in a dead woman’s postcard collection my father purchased at an estate sale
Back in the day, my father had two main hobbies: garage sale-ing and stamp collecting. The way that these two hobbies manifested themselves in combination was when my dad would go to an estate sale (meaning someone has died), he would purchase the deceased’s collection of letters. He then would browse for any stamps of value. When he found one, he would wet it, peel it off, and catalogue it appropriately in one of his many binders.
Some time during this long-lasting, decade-spanning activity, my father’s two hobbies turned into just one – light hoarding. And so the postcards sat in my father’s corner of the basement. For years they were hidden from humankind until one day I unearthed a treasure of thousands of old postcards spanning from 1893 to 1969 and this one was in there. It tells a great story of a father who’s just trying to be a part of his son’s life presumably post-divorce and is having a tough time.
FOUND by Deanna in the Acton Public Library, Old Saybrook, Connecticut
I found this on page 25 of The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest. From the inferred maturity of the writer, I assume that the mom was the reader of the book. My favorite part is the “Answer here” line on the left side of the page.
FOUND by Vincent R. in Albuquerque, New Mexico
I walked out this morning to get the newspaper and saw this crumpled up note stuck halfway under a flowerpot. It was so windy here yesterday that it must have blown in and got stuck there. At first, I thought it was an old tissue that we had left out there. I picked it up and found that it was a Valentines Day card/note.
FOUND by Derrick Nelson in the Reading Room of the New York Public Library, Manhattan, New York City, New York
Found this casually discarded by itself on top of a bookshelf in the main reading room of the New York Public Library (the Stephen A. Schwarzman building to be specific). I am torn between thinking it’s sad that a mom couldn’t say this in person to her kids, it sounds like she abandoned them, and what kind of mom uses the formal expression, “thank you in advance for your understanding”? At the same time I think how cool it must be to have a mom that leaves you secret messages hidden throughout NYC.
