Granny's Pantry #71--The Postcard

 When people die or have to move from home and aren't able to help sort their belongings, they leave behind an endless string of mysteries without the ability to explain their secrets. 

• A collection of trinkets...what did they mean? Why did you keep them? 
• Stacks of old photographs...who are these people? Who were they to you? Greeting cards from countless holidays...why did you keep them? 
• Was it for the pictures or the people they represented? 

Clearing out Aunt Ruthie's things at High Rock went far beyond Aunt Ruthie. She was just the last of the ones who made the place so special. While she made her own mark in the old house, she also left traces of those who came before. Grandsir Jim, Grandsir Tom, their wives, Granny and Granddaddy Cole, their children and spouses, and others.

There was a treasure trove of papers and books. Too many books to keep. Some we took, some we left for others. But it was the letters, postcards and greeting cards that couldn't be left behind. Just as they kept them, we kept them. Each one is a tiny window into a world gone by. Will we ever get a glimpse of what it inside of each small window? Will there be enough time before they become someone else's mysteries to add to those we leave behind?

One such puzzle that remains, with no one to ask for the keys to the questions it raises, was found written on an old postcard.

The postcard read--

Loved One:-

Wait for me in the Penny Arcade. I will wear a red necktie and a black derby hat. I have the money so will see all the sights. What do you say to a little automobile ride and a swell dinner. I'm ready—you just say where—I'm waiting--

That was all. No signature, no date, no return address. The card was old. Very old. Maybe from the early 1900s old. The script was legible but impossible to tell whether from a man or a woman. Except that the greeting and the message, the invitation, sounded masculine. And almost sounded like a dare.  The card was never mailed. Did it make its way to the intended some other way? Was it just wishful thinking? Was it even real?

“Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, 'Write all the words which 

I have spoken to you in a book. '"  

(Jeremiah 30:2)