My dissatisfaction with Postals

Recently, I dropped from four Postal Trackers, which I had signed up for months ago. In the messages I sent to all participants, I merely said I found my interest waning ad felt like I would become a black hole in the future. On this blog I'd like to detail why.

One of the things I LOVE about letterboxing is the stamps. It's amazing to me that true works of art could be hidden just feet off the trail that hundreds of people pass daily. I feel like I'm in on a secret. One of the things that attracted me to postals is that I felt since people would run less of a risk of their carving being lost, they would carve better stamps.While I have found the carvings are generally better (and in some cases amazing) they have lost a little value to me. I admit, I'm becoming sort of a stamp snob. Part of the joys of boxing in PA is that there are SO MANY great carvers around, you get great stamps a LOT. Just seeing their carves have made mine better.

But that's the thing. These amazing artists take JOY out of placing their art in the woods, no matter what fate brings. They don't reserve their shitty carvings for the woods. They put their BEST carvings out there to be found. Just shipping them around to 8-12 people then putting them on the shelf seems weird to me. I appreciate them a lot more when there's trees around.

Secondly, I get overwhelmingly stressed if I do not send the thing out in exactly three days. I am by nature, not a punctual person. I have little free time, and family and work interfere. I have let some of my postals go for a week or more. Every new one that arrived made me more stressed. Instead of being excited about receiving a new postal, I was having the opposite reaction. This was robbing me of the happiness I should feel about receiving someone's art. I may have signed up for too many rings being relatively new to postals, but I definitely got burned out quick. Seeing reports on AQ of boxers receiving TWELVE packages at once filled me with dread.

Finally, the postals were actually taking up time that I wanted to use for actual letterboxing pursuits, like solving mysteries, planning outings, poring over maps, preparing boxes. It would be a sad day indeed when it started taking over actually getting on the trails.

This is not meant to disparage postal letterboxing or anyone that enjoys it. I may even sign up for a postal in the future if the theme particularly suits my fancy (like my Punk Rock Ring). But it will be only one at a time.If you have never done postals and feel the urge, by all means sign up. Celtic Quinn hosts a newbie Ring and many ringleaders are very helpful to new entrants. But be wary. Take your time to learn about it, sign up for just one ring until you see if you like it. There are some GREAT postal creators out there, and you'll see and stamp into some great stuff. Just remember the experiences I have had and if you start to feel the way I do, it will probably get worse.

I didn't want postals to rob me of the joy of postal letterboxes. Does that make sense?

And for the forseeable future, all of my carves except for sig stamps and PT's are destined for the woods.

Livermore (BOO!)

This weekend, after planting a box on Saturday, we decided to go check out one of the few remaining letterboxes within a fifty mile radius that was unfound by us.

This Letterbox is located near a VERY historic cemetery and ghost town, unfortunately, most of the history about this place is untrue.

Livermore was named for a guy named Alonzo Livermore, an engineer for the Pennsylvania Canal, which was the life-blood of the town's economy. In the 1950's, the town was dismantled by the Army Corps of Engineers to make way for Conemaugh Lake. All the residents were moved, and the water was let in.


There are an amazing amount of urban legends about this place:

1. George Romero's "Night of the Living Dead" was filmed here. This is False. That was actually filmed in Evan's City, PA. The problem with everyone thinking it was filmed here is that the cemetary which holds the long-dead, before-flood, residents of Livermore is frequently disturbed by vandals and occultists. All this has resulted in the cemetary being completely off-limits and you can get fined, by the patrolling state-police for crossing the gate below:


2. The cemetery was uprooted and moved to it's current location. Also false. The cemetery has ALWAYS been here. (Well, at least since Livermorians (?!?!) started dying.) There used to be a bridge that crossed the old rail line to connect the town to the cemetery.


3. When the water is low, you can see the chimneys of the old houses and steeple of the old church. It is really spooky. Nope, false, false, false. The key thing about bullet point number 1 is that the town was DISMANTLED. Everything. Yup, even the church. However, if the creek is REALLY low, you can see some foundations. Big whoop. Here is where the town USED to be:

All of these facts aside, it is a spooky place. The place just feels old and stinks of industrial neglect. The flood basin just piles up huge masses of rotting timber and deposits it along the trail, so at times you feel as if you're entering some place you shouldn't be.

The flowers were out and beautiful (too bad these pictures suck. I gotta start remembering my camera. These are taken with my phone):

And we found the box. Inside was a hitchhiker all the way from California that was part of "The Great HH Race of 2004." We'll send it on it's way up to NY and maybe FINALLY it can reach it's destination.

Gathers, Boxers, and Beers, OH MY!

This weekend we were able to attend Stampin' and Campin. What a great experience. Throughout the entire brou-ha-ha I forgot to take any pictures at all until the ride home. Real smart.

Some of the highlights:

1. If you ever get a chance to attend a gather thrown by the Mid-Atlantic crowd, I HIGHLY suggest you do so. Hikers and Hounds managed every detail, down to bringing food, arranging for campsite, and some gather-only boxes. She really deserves credit for all she put into this, we had a GREAT time.
2. A large contigent of dogs filled the campsites, all of them boxers as well. Dude the Wonder Dog, Otto, and Luna all had inky doggy-paws. There was also a large black lab who was patrolling the grounds late at night. I failed to catch his name by that point, however, as I was having trouble being coherent. Which leads me to....
3. Booze! Maryland is kind enough to let you do whatever the hell you want in their woods, as long as you do not have more than two cars per campsite. This is the one thing they will strictly enforce, asking you to kindly move your moonshine distillery so the third car in the site next to you can go to the overflow parking lot. We had lots of beer and one illustrious set of boxers were kind enough to bring Johnny Walker. (not the person)
4. We got the oppotunity to box with a team that has been around since the beginning of boxing in the US. I won't reveal who they are as they choose to fly under the radar, but it was really quite the learning experience getting regaled with stories about the origination of cooties, long time boxers, and happenings before we wandered into this wonderful hobby.
5. The STAMPS! Starry Starry Night by MizSarlet is a masterpiece (quite literally) and the homages, personal travelers, and other assorted stamps were a pleasure to ink up.
6. Cyclonic was kind enough to set up a night boxing course. The trail was tricky at night, but we had a wonderful time stumbling around the woods that we hardly nnoticed.
7. Sunday we went boxing again, and found another set of one of my favorite series. At one of the boxes, there was a family literally SITTING on the log it was hidden in, and we simply had to wait for about 10 minutes before they decided to move on.

I'm sure I'm leaving out a lot, but thank you to everyone who made this experience memorable. Longstockings and I felt truly welcome and had a great time.

On the way home, our car started behaving funny, so we pulled over into Frederick airport, thinking if we couldn't fix the problem we could rent a car. To make a long story short, we fixed the problem quickly and decided to get some dinner at the little restaurant in the airport. When we got into the restaurant and looked out the window, here is what we saw:

That's right, the Goodyear f'n blimp was docked at this teensy little airport for the night. How cool is that? There are actually three of them, One based each in Florida, California, and Ohio. It was neat seeing this thing up close.

After eating we were attracted to a micro-box along the Appalacian Trail:

This box is located about 100 yds away from this sign at the FIRST Washington Monument. The thing in the photos below was built in the 1820's by the residents of Boonesboro, MD to honor our First President.

The Pirate and I in the doorway:

The steps up to the top:

What a view!:

All in all, a great weekend with great people. Thank you all for the history, good times and camaraderie.

HH's, little animals, and LTC's

This weekend was not a huge boxing weekend. I had to work on Saturday, and Sunday we did some other stuff with family. We were able to fit in one box however. This box was located in a city park and contained a store-bought stamp. Other than the hiding spot which was really spectacular, is was a pretty run-of-the-mill find.

The thing that really brightened the day up was a little HH I found inside. This little guy, from the SoHillHendersons, has been all over the country and the stamp, though small, is fairly intricate. This is what makes me really appreciate HH's, they can add to the enjoyment of a find. There is not just one logbook to enjoy, but two. There is not just one stamp to enjoy, but two. And the HH is sort of an adventurer with it's own little story. I love these little things, and I have a hostel ready to plant, I just have to find the right place.

Additionally, we found two more little dudes that day. For those of you that read my blogs, you may remember the baby groundhog. Well this weekend we also found:

and:

Box Turtles are pretty funny little guys, and they're named "box turtles" because they muggle letterboxes. This one I followed to his hidey-hole and found mounds of chewed up tupperware. It's the ink they like. :) I actually thought it would be neat to create a little hitchhiker, where the stamp is a piece of tupperware with four legs and a head. "the Box Turtle..." heh...

In other news, LTC's are "Letterboxer Trading Cards" which are based on Artist Trading cards. The idea is to have a central image on the front side of the card, using mixed media, but it must include a hand-carved stamp. On the back you have your trail name, your real name if you wish, the LTC name and the edition number (i.e. 1 of 20.) I thought this was a pretty great idea, and I spent the weekend making mine. I'm very happy with the way they turned out. When I came into work on Monday, I saw there was another tracker listed (thanks Batty Girl!) for trading these cards, with a limit of 20. I signed up in the nick of time, and am really excited for this to start.


Disclaimer: Yes, Old Scratch, the Devil, Satan, whatever you want to call him is included on my LTC. No, I am not a Satan Worshipper. In fact, if you are truly are ambivalent in regards to spirituality, you equally deny both the good side AND the opposition. Lucifer ("Lucy" to his friends) is included as a reference to Robert Johnson, one of the quintessential blues artists.