The last time I saw Roy Redlich was in 1967. I was 12 years old
and visiting my hometown of Chicago on my way back from attending my
brother's wedding in New York.
I had left Chicago four years earlier, at age 8, after my father
had taken a job offer in Los Angeles. With encouragement from my
mother, Roy and I began to correspond on a regular basis.
Each letter was received with great excitement, as though it was a
priceless gift. The letters from Roy were not hard to spot among the
rest of the mail -- each one had kid scrawl where a neatly printed
address and return address should have been. And in the corner of
each letter was a 5-cent stamp.
In 1965, I made an appearance on the TV show "Art Linkletter's
House Party." I was one of those kids Linkletter lined up to
interview and hoped would say something outrageous. I'm pleased to
note that I did not disappoint him.
It was a national TV program, and Roy saw me all the way in
Chicago. Right after that, he wrote a letter to tell me what a crack
up I was. "What a dope!" is more accurate.
I wrote back to tell him how a limousine picked me up right in
front of school as all the kids were arriving to go to class, how
they took us to a big lunch at a nice restaurant and how we got a
zillion toys after the show.
Roy wrote back to tell me about his brother Carl and his dog
"Tippy" and all the other stuff that was going on in Hyde Park, the
neighborhood I'd left behind.
Roy and I stopped corresponding not long after our reunion in
1967. By that time, I had the letter writing bug and continued to
write letters to anyone I thought might reply.
A couple of years ago, I used a free online search to try to find
Roy. I even wrote to all of the Roy Redlich's on the list that came
up, but I did not get a reply.
Some time after college, I'm not sure when, I all but stopped
writing letters. And I'm trying hard to recall, but I don't think
either of our kids, 9 and 12, have ever written anything but a "thank
you" note, and not enough of those.
I know that in school they are still teaching the proper placement
of the address, return address and stamp, but I don't know what good
that does, since we don't write many letters any more.
Heck, we don't even use the mail to pay bills any more. That's
something else we do online.
A few days ago, a lady told me that when her mother passed away,
she discovered that her mom had kept all of their correspondence over
a period of decades, creating what was a very valuable family
history.
