Out On A Limb With Jean

                   In our day and age, it is the rare individual that never lives more than 100 miles from where they were born.   My husband Craig is the perfect example.   He was born in Baltimore, Maryland and at 18 months of age, moved with his parents and older brother to Lakewood, Colorado.   He went to college nearby in Boulder, Colorado; upon graduating he got a job at Abbott Laboratories in North Chicago, Illinois.   We now live just 1 ½ miles from the Illinois state line in Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin.                    My mother, who was born in Kit Carson County, Colorado, and died in Denver, Colorado, lived in her home state except for a short time when she lived in Brownwood, Texas while my dad was at Camp Bowie during basic training for World War II.      ...

While letters delivered by the postal worker may be few and far between these days, it wasn’t that long ago that they were the best way to communicate.   Even after telephones were in every home, the cost of long distance calls tended to dictate the days calls were made, and the duration of those calls.   When Craig and I first moved to Illinois, I would usually call my mom on a Saturday once a month, or at the most every two weeks.   Even then, I would limit the time on the phone due to the cost.   But a letter, although that’s only a one-way conversation, was much cheaper and I could write as much as I wanted for one stamp.   When I consider how many Zoom meetings and conversations we’ve had throughout this COVID-19 pandemic, I compare that to the 1918 Influenza pandemic, or even World War II, when the only ways to communicate were by mail or telegram, since few homes had telephones even then.   My grandparents were the first generations of their fa...