Messenger - Vol. 3, No. 1, Page 15
Fall 1993
Postcard from the past

     It wasn't unusual for Ken Green of Reading, Pa., Delaware '64, to
receive postcards from his sister, Louise, when he was a college student
and she was jetting around the country as a flight attendant for American
Airlines.
     One piece of correspondence, however, reached Ken a little late-like
33 years.
     Mailed from Flushing, N.Y., on June 2, 1960, with 5-cents postage
attached, the card appeared in the University's mailroom this June
addressed to Green at his former campus address- 108 Harter Hall.
     It carried salutations from his sister, her good wishes that his exams
were going well and some sisterly advice about not drinking too much at a
friend's upcoming wedding.
     Christopher Stevens, a student working at Campus Mail, says he found
the card in a bin of mail he was sorting and forwarding to students' summer
addresses. The bin, he said, had just come in from the post office.
     Exactly what happened is a mystery.
     According to Rick Hansen, supervisor for the U.S. Postal Service
district that handles the University, the card could have been in any
number of post offices on its travels from New York to Delaware.
     He expressed surprise that a postcard with a l960 postmark passed
through his office unnoticed. "Usually mail that is found is placed in a
special envelope or stamped to explain why it is being delivered late,"
Hansen says.
     Green, manager of programming for the Crompton & Knowles Corp. in
Reading, Pa., says delivery of the postcard was a refreshing incident. He
says he eventually mailed it to his sister in McLean, Va., and she also got
a chuckle out of it.  He says he may send the story to Reader's Digest.
     "It was fun to receive it, but I guess the real mystery is, where has
it been all these years?" Green says.
                                                  -Beth Thomas