Love notes

"So, I need 2 ask U, do U like Bobby from our class? He rides by ur house all the time..."

This was posted on the Facebook wall belonging to one of my teenage "friends."

"Um.... no?" She replied.

This innocent little exchange caused me to have this epiphany:

Do These Kids Nowadays write love notes to each other?  Like on paper? With a pencil? Or an ink-pen?

I bet they just text. Or Facebook, or whatever. 

(WARNING: Here comes the part where I wax all nostalgic about how things were awesome back in My Day and, in doing so, I will sound like I'm 80 years old. I'm not. I'm 42. But I can't help myself. Ready? Here goes...)

I would imagine that texting is a stealthier and more secure method of message delivery. Back in the Precambrian Era  Great Depression 1970s and 1980s, you had to wait for your math teacher to turn his back and write on the board. (Sorry, Mr. Cameron!) Then you had to place your trust in the three classmates sitting between you and your crush, and hope that they would actually deliver your note to the intended recipient without getting caught. Or intercepting and reading your note, causing you to die of embarassment right there at your right-handed desk (even though you were left-handed, but all they had in the classroom was two leftie desks).

Of course, your note had to be short so he could read it fast (and in this we have the precursor to today's 140-character text message). The recipient would have to check the appropriate box - or circle yes or no - then refold the note and casually send it back your way.

Do you like me? Yes or no. Circle one.  Pass this back to me.

And then my mind wandered all the way back to the school tablets whose sheets we transformed into brief declarations of puppy love. Remember the tablets? They weren't notebooks; they were top-bound, lined tablets.  Not three-hole punched, not spiral-bound, not perforated. And the best thing was, they would give you one upon request! Remember that? You'd raise your hand and announce you needed a new tablet, and Voila! Fresh tablet! Gratis. They smelled so good and held such promise.

But the best part about a new tablet was, without question, decorating the cover. This was where your true artistic potential could be expressed, you with the loopy cursive and bubble i-dots and hearts and smiley-faces. Remember practicing how to write you and your crush's name?

Meg + Curt

Curt + Meg

Meg luvs Curt

2B + 2gether = 4ever

Meg McCormick

Mrs. Curt McCormick

I tried to find a picture of an old school tablet from the 1970s. If I remember correctly, the brand was "Educator" and there was a picture of a quill and inkwell and maybe a scroll. But when I Googled "old school tablet", here's what I got:

I know, right??? I'm old, Google, but I am NOT THAT OLD, okay?

And then I got a lot of this:

I'm sorry, but *that* is NOT a "tablet." 

WTF, Google??

Will Today's Youth ever know the thrill of receiving a sheet of lined paper, folded into eighths, slipped into your locker through the vent or tucked into your Trapper Keeper? Will they ever compulsively unfold and refold that note, until it starts to tear along the folds, reading and rereading it to discern any possible subtext? 

Will they ever feel tempted to correct their crush's spelling, or be ever-so-slightly put off by a misused your/you're or their/there or to/too?

(Shut up. If you've read this far, you already know I'm a freak, and if this isn't your first time here, you love me in spite of it. You can't be surprised to learn that I was compulsive about grammar and spelling at a tender age.)

Possibly the best thing about notes was, if necessary, you could destroy them.  Three weeks after you passed that note in math class, you were already on to a new crush, and any evidence of your previous crush could be burned or flushed or torn into teeny, tiny bits and scattered out the window of the school bus.

And then?

You could raise your hand and request a brand-new tablet.

What are your memories of love notes that you sent or received?

Comments

[Chesapeake Bay Woman]

OK. See, I never wrote directly to the boy until later in life/junior senior in high school. Most of the time I'd pass the note to my friend (girl) telling HER that I liked So-and-So. Then she'd tell someone and they'd tell someone and so on, and so on. (A shampoo commercial comes to mind, circa 1492.)

Second of all, the tablets *did* have an inkwell and a feather or some such on the cover. In later years, I recall such things as the mimeograph machine. Everything was purple. All of our tests were done on mimeograph.

The trapperkeeper! Good one.

Signed,
Methuseleh's Sister

[Meg]

Oh CBW, you know I have written about the mimeograph machine before! We are singin' from the same hymnal, sister.

Signed,
Methuseleh.

[Molly]

And when you wanted to talk to your crush on the phone, back in the Paleolithic era of our youth, you had to dial (rotary?) their home phone number (really, kids!) and ask their PARENTS if you could speak to that boy you liked. This assured that girls only called boys that they REALLY liked. Otherwise, you had your friend talk to his friend in the hallway by their lockers. Now your kids are texting, facebooking, and calling cell to cell and we have to go all Private Eye to keep a handle on thier romantic shenanigans!

[Meg]

I KNOW, RIGHT? It's crazy times, Molly. Just crazy.

[rosemary]

I know this is way old, but did you have a special way of folding the paper? We folded it lengthwise into fourths, and then folded it on itself into a triangle , then a square, then a triangle , until you had a most compact little square with the corner tucked in, kind of the way they fold an American flag for presentation at a ceremony. You could pass those suckers in the palm of your hand, and teachers didn't see (or pretended they didn't) the machinations of LUV at work.Lots more intrigue than a text message.

[Meg]

YES WE DID! - little teeny tiny triangles. Holes would wear through at the stress points.