Tag Archives: Steve Carell

Sunday Letters: a letter from my Dad

Today I’m sharing a letter my father wrote me this week. It’s these kind of letters you keep forever.

I love you Dad!

photo: Jerry Sandridge

photo: Jerry Sandridge

Dear Reed

Your Day 34 letter moved me greatly. Those 41 words that Steve Carell wrote could have just as easily come out of your mouth. Your Mom sent you many handwritten letters and I know how much you miss them. I’ve never been much for writing letters. I’ll try to do better, but they won’t be the same — they won’t have that beautiful, flowing penmanship that she had. They won’t have those quaint phrases that you and your brother loved so much. And I doubt if I can match her upbeat spirit. But hey … it’s a start.

Love You,
Dad.

Day 34: Anonymous (Teaism Dupont)

Day34I thought I would do something different today – leave a letter anonymously somewhere around town. It’s an idea that I got from a project called Letters Left in London.

So I stopped in for lunch at Teaism in Dupont and left my letter on the window sill. I tried to be rather discreet and leave it there with nobody seeing me. I think it worked, but then I wanted a photograph of it and that certainly drew some attention, but apparently not that much because after taking the picture I took my food upstairs and enjoyed my lunch.

I sat there and peacefully enjoyed my asian barbecue chicken kebab while wondering if anyone had picked up my letter. Perhaps someone would come upstairs with it in hand. That might be interesting. I didn’t leave my name on it or even my return address…perhaps I should have, but I can do that next time. Today I was nervous leaving it there, it was like I was doing something wrong. My heart skipped a bit faster.

The letter was still comfortably leaning against the sugar canister when I left some thirty minutes later.

Day34-3

“Sending a handwritten letter is becoming such an anomaly. It’s disappearing. My mom is the only one who still writes me letters. And there’s something visceral about opening a letter – I see her on the page. I see her in her handwriting.” – Steve Carell

Take time this week to write someone you care about a handwritten letter.

Not sure what brand of cards these are, but I've had them for a long time.

Not sure what brand of cards these are, but I’ve had them for a long time.

Sunday Notes

Me mailing the letter to Steve Carell from his hometown of Newton, MA. It was about 0 degrees when I snapped this photo.

Me mailing the letter to Steve Carell from his hometown of Newton, MA. It was about 0 degrees when I snapped this photo.

Good morning! Every Sunday I will either share a letter written by someone else – maybe a famous letter or perhaps a letter from my shoebox full of saved letters – or I’ll update you on the Year of Letters; responses that I have received and other tidbits that might not weave their way into the daily posts. Think of it like a day that you can kind of get a broader view on the project.

It’s been almost two weeks since I started the project and already I feel that I have learned some things. Here are 5 lessons learned so far:

  1. This takes a lot of time. Not so much writing the letters, but managing the blog, getting the photographs of the letters, etc.
  2. I have terrible handwriting. Now this isn’t really anything new to me, but none the less it saddens me to see my inconsistent scribbles in the photographic images of my letters. I sure hope it gets better through this project.
  3. Despite that people rarely send them, everyone loves to receive handwritten letters.
  4. Either I did a terrible job promoting my writing session yesterday here in DC or people don’t like to meet up to write letters – which is quite possible.
  5. My hands feel very arthritic and I worry about the remaining 354 days.

So far I’ve heard back from…

Whole Foods (Day 3) tweeted at me that they were happy that I shared the story of their employee who went the extra mile for our family over Thanksgiving.
A.R. and Aimee (Day 5) wrote me and said that I’ll be receiving a letter in the mail from them.
The Kimpton Group (Day 6) replied to me via Twitter – my request looks promising!Screen Shot 2015-01-10 at 11.42.16 PM
Several people via email, Facebook and Twitter who have been extremely supportive of this project and one person even sent me some of their favorite stationery for me to use. THANK YOU Nicole!

I’ll be back tomorrow morning, sharing another letter.

Day 7: Steve Carell

Photo courtesy of http://disney.wikia.com

Photo courtesy of http://disney.wikia.com

Greetings from Massachusetts – I’m up here for some business meetings. Today’s recipient needs no introduction, but I thought I would share this little nugget of information. Did you know that the former star of The Office had a short-lived stint as rural mail carrier while he was living here in Massachusetts. Yep, and he drove his own car around reaching over to try to shove letters in mailboxes. He lasted four months…months later he said he found some undelivered mail Continue reading