I was talking to a dad the other day, and while we were on the phone, he was checking his actual physical mailbox. He laughed.

Sitting in the stack of mostly junk was a letter addressed to him, from his daughter, sent five weeks ago while she was at camp.

How a letter takes 5+ weeks to make it about 100 miles, neither of us could figure out. He didn't seem to care.

Because in it (he read part of it to me) was just regular stuff about camp, the weather, people in the bunk, the fun, the food. Normal stuff.

Five weeks “late”, and it was still the best thing in the pile. Frankly, it was the only thing in the pile, and I know this without even looking, because the real mail is mostly filled with 100% fake stuff these days.

Writing and sending letters is a completely lost art form. It just doesn't exist anywhere in the world anymore.

Except...

Putting Pen to Paper

Kids at K&E write letters home all the time. It's just culturally normal here.

Rest hour comes around, and kids pull out paper and start writing. Nobody makes them. We don't really push it at all. Maybe every once in a while a counselor will say, all right guys, let's write some letters home. Mostly it just happens.

Every day of the summer, there's a stack of letters heading out of camp.

So, does this really matter?

I'm not making the case that kids need to learn handwriting, or that everything was better in some older time. Emails and texts are better and faster for most things. No argument there.

There's just something to be said for thoughtfulness. A kid sitting down during rest hour, thinking about someone at home long enough to fill a page, folding it up, and sending it off.

Part of this culture is doing things we would all universally agree are good. And no one has ever argued against a kid writing home.

Between last week's bell-to-bell email and this one, you might think we're making some anti-tech push here. I'm really not. It's more about noticing what's happening. The stuff disappearing everywhere else is still just a normal Tuesday.

It’s awesome watching those letters go out from the office every day. It means kids were sitting and thinking about who was getting them in the mail, hopefully faster than a month-plus later.

You got this,

Jack

Speaking of good mail, something should be showing up in mailboxes this week: K&E gear is on its way to families already enrolled.

And if you've been thinking about Summer '27, register and we'll get the next gear drop headed your way if you enroll by Oct 1. Register here!​

Keep an eye on the mailbox. It's a good week for it.

114 Eagle Pond Rd, Wilmot, NH 03287
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