I have several friends that I write letters to, back and forth, on a regular basis.

I used to write letters to people using paper and pen, now I type them out on the keyboard and email them or print them and sign them.

The new way is much better for several reasons. For starters, there are no spelling errors and editing can be accomplished with the wiggle of a mouse or the stroke of a key or two. That certainly will outdo the old strike it out or ball it up and start over methods.

I am just too sloppy to write a perfect letter on the first, or even third, try. But that is the beauty of it - the mistakes are what make letters personal. If I misspell a word or write one letter poorly, (my letters r, h and b are often mistaken for anything other than what they really should be), then that just adds character to the letter. It also makes people pay more attention, therefore perhaps they more carefully read, and ultimately better understand, my letter. I tried this argument with my teacher in third grade while getting poor marks on writing, to no avail. She still made me write those letters on the big paper with the big pencil, while everyone else had regular pencils. "I don't want the big stupid pencil," I said. Soon afterwards, I started typing assignments and I have been at it every since.

I went to the mailbox the other day and found a pleasant surprise: a hand-written letter in an envelope, complete with a post mark.

It was a most pleasant surprise. Most of the letters that I get in my personal mailbox are from Ed McMahon's cronies or some credit card company that is determined to give me some of its money. Sometimes they even come complete with fake handwriting.

Of course the newspaper gets letters to the editor pretty regularly, but they usually arent' personal (unless someone is attacking me personally). Most of the letters are written to the newspaper, which folks realize will ultimately deliver them to the public. I really like it when someone thinks enough of something we do to respond. That helps us know we are doing our job.

As for my letter in my mailbox, I took the letter out to the truck and put it on the console. After I got home, I opened it up and read it over twice.

I sat down the following morning with a steaming cup of coffee, while my mind was still fairly fresh, and started my response. I had the other letter to look at while I wrote it out. It had been a long time since I hand-wrote anything for someone else.

I write notes in such a cryptic language that CIA operatives couldn't decipher them. However, with a letter, the idea is to at least get it clear enough so that the person you sent it to can figure out what you're trying to say. I hope I succeeded.

That is another thing about real letters, they take awhile. Given that fact, I find that I tend to put more time into them and therefore have fewer misunderstandings. After all, if someone misunderstands an email, all you have to do is zip another one to them to clear it up. At least that is the plan.

We as Americans really don't appreciate the value of paper. I have always had paper to scribble on, to ball up and throw, to make spitwads out of, paper airplanes, start fires, etc.

In some countries, people would love to have just one sheet of paper and we treat it like nothing.

I have almost every letter and card that anyone has ever sent me packed away in a small box in a second-floor closet at my parents' home. I have some of the newer ones in a file at my house. One day perhaps someone will be able to trace a few of my steps and know what kind of person I was by reading the letters people have written to me. They will have to wait until I die, though. I have never showed my collection to anyone, and I am not likely to do so now.

All of the letters are not positive or even good. I have nice letters and mean letters, well written letters and poorly scrawled notes, but they all represent what someone was feeling towards me at some moment in time. While I realize that my sentimentality is senseless, I hold onto it through the false ruse of supporting history.

I have read some of the letters sent between man and wife, family and son, during the war between the states. They are touching and shockingly real, almost breathing life into bodies fallen well over 135 years ago. As if I have to worry about anyone wanting to remember me after I leave this world and enter that great unknown ethereality.

I haven't done anything so great as lose my life for my country and I haven't lived in very exciting times. I suppose you could point to the space age, the computer age and many other technological advances. I think we actually become spiritually less with every new advance. We have lost our contact with reality, with the pen and the paper. The scratch, scratch of a quill on parchment must have set the tempo for thought for many of our country's forefathers, just as the tapping of keys sets the rhythm of my thoughts in this column.

Perhaps they are just different devices for recording words that express our thoughts and feelings, but ink and paper are the classical, if you don't count chisel and stone.

Since those are mainly used today on grave markers, which weigh about three tons, I don't think that will be a good medium of communication. As for keyboards versus ink pens, can you imagine the Magna Carta or the Declaration of Independence typed out and printed on computer paper with the word "draft" stamped on top? It really would lose quite a bit of its power, but why? Perhaps it is just the age-old power of the pen.

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