Don’t Forget To Write

In an effort to pro­mote the not-quite-lost art of let­ter-writ­ing, the USPS is giv­ing away postage-paid note­cards adorned with John Adams quo­ta­tions about let­ter-writ­ing. I’m skep­ti­cal that the «first one’s free» strat­e­gy will actu­al­ly cause peo­ple who are not nor­mal­ly let­ter-writ­ers to adopt a habit, but I have to give them props for the attempt. I’m sure that it will suc­cess­ful­ly rein­force the habit in those who already have it. Not to men­tion how refresh­ing it is to see the gov­ern­ment actu­al­ly pro­mot­ing some­thing good.

Get yours by going to http://www.poweroftheletter.com/. The card is free, they ship it to you at no charge, and it comes post­paid. There are a half-dozen designs to choose from and the cards can be cus­tomized with your own pho­to­graph on the inside if you so choose. Seems the USPS went all-out for a give­away. The least we can do is order (and use!) the freebies. 

To those who are con­cerned about tax dol­lars or rev­enue from stamp sales going toward a bunch of give­aways, the card does have an adver­tise­ment for the HBO minis­eries John Adams on the back pan­el. Nor­mal­ly, I find adver­tise­ments dis­taste­ful, but it seems this is sup­port­ing a good cause. I have no knowl­edge that the ad sup­ports the whole cost of print­ing and dis­trib­ut­ing the cards, but I hope it does. The ad is on the back, where peo­ple usu­al­ly don’t write any­way, and it ties in to the John Adams theme, so good for them to come up with this promotion. 

Mine’s on its way. Haven’t yet decid­ed who’ll get it.

(thanks to Foun­tain Pen Net­work for point­ing this out)