National Postcard Week

(This vintage postcard shows the Welwood Murry Library downtown that is now going to be renovated and once again become part of the Palm Springs Public Library.)

There are weeks and days celebrating almost everything under the sun here in the United States all the time. Most of these events go unnoticed, except by those often involved in the professions or interests that they celebrate.

As an example we just had National Library Week (April 13-19) and this week it is National Nurses Week (May 6-12), National Music Week (May 3-10) and National Postcard Week (May3-9) among others.

A few years ago before we moved here to Palm Springs, I thought it would be fun to have a few vintage postcards and began buying them at flea markets and on eBay. Mostly I collected postcards from the two towns in Massachusetts that I was most associated with, Lancaster and Milton. This interest I am sure came from a friend of mine who had had an enormous collection of postcards from Provincetown, Massachusetts.

(This turn of the century postcard shows the Milton, MA Public Library just after it was built. It recently reopened after being refurbished and having a large addition built onto it.)

In the 19th and early 20th centuries, postcards were very popular as a way to send a quick note or greeting to family and friends, especially before telephones became universal. Tourist towns like Provincetown and Palm Springs, California, of course generated lots of postcards that their visitors could send home. And, even today, postcards seem to be most used by tourists when on vacation as a way to still send a quick note home.

Over the years I've even framed a few postcards as a cheap form of artwork. Some of these were souvenir postcards my mother had from the 1933 Chicago World's Fair, while a few others were of old Palm Springs that were put in horizontal frames over the twin beds in our guest room as a sort of headboard.

Postcards, like all mail, are no longer cheap to either buy or mail (if you mail one this week it will only cost $.26, but on May 12th it will cost you $.27) so to celebrate, go out and find a cool postcard and mail it to someone. You could even send one to me.