Postcard feature: F is for Flight

Jonathan goes by Jonno, and is six-almost-seven.  He loves to excel at things and often tests himself to see if he can do as well as someone else.  On our trip to North Idaho in January, after watching me make several vocabulary postcards, he began producing his own.

I noticed this, because Jesse--also six-almost-seven--usually leads in artsy things.  So I was surprised to see Jonno edge him out on this one.  So surprised, I didn't realize that both boys were making these cards until after I wrote this post; and I've had to come back and correct my misperceptions.

This week brought F is for Flight back in the mail.  F is for Flight is Jesse's postcard.

The little boys are very much into Pokemon, and the fascination shows in the toothed flying creature with which Jesse illustrated his card.  I'm always happy to see their little drawings returned!

This one was lost in the Spokane Main Branch library, and found by someone at the Indian Trail Branch.

Thank you, unnamed discoverer, for returning Jesse's postcard to us!  (And to Jesse, for finding it funny and not upsetting that I confused his work for Jonno's!)

The discoverer wrote a note about finding F is for Fighting:

Hello,

I almost threw this away until I noticed the postcard side.  I at first thought it was just a drawing.  It has taken me  a while to mail it back because we do not have an outgoing mail at the Indian Trail Branch of the Spokane Public Library.  So I took it home to mail.  :)

Library feature: Multnomah Main Library, Portland

Portland is a really fun city to visit. Public transit is easy, the city's very walkable, gardens are everywhere.  There's Powell's City of Books, the weirdest and most wonderful warehouse of words there is.  And there's the Multnomah Public Library, the oldest library system west of the Mississippi.

The main branch is in the Pearl district.  The day I visited, I didn't have my camera with me, which is unfortunate because the architecture of this old building is wonderful to look at.  It was built in 1913, I'm told, and has always housed the library.  The main floor features Scagliola faux marble columns, original to the building.  Although Scagliola columns developed as a cheaper alternative to marble inlays, they were still expensive enough in 1913 that only the first floor had them.  In the 1990s renovation of the library, artist Phillip Emmerling carefully handpainted the Scagliola pattern on columns on the second and third floors to match the original columns on the ground floor.  Original pendant light fixtures have been retained in some areas.

The library is punctuated with wonderful art.  Two striking pieces in the children's room are a bronze tree whose trunk is a tangled tapestry of Pacific Northwest nature and Dewey Decimal subjects; and a wood bas relief of Alice in Wonderland that was a WPA project in 1930.

I love that this library houses one of the largest collections of sheet music.  The rare book room is open to the public.  Inside you'll find such things as an original Audubon and illuminated Bibles.

Amazing.

Today's young readers love Junie B Jones or Heloise, but the eccentric kindergartner of my childhood was Ramona Quimby.  And this is what makes the Multnomah Main Branch really cool--Ramona's creator, Beverly Cleary, did an internship here!  The library's children's section is named for her, and the collection includes translations of her books in many languages--even Finnish! Better yet--Ramona's actual neighborhood is nearby.  The library gives out walking-tour maps, so you can walk over and explore all the areas featured in the Ramona The Pest books. How fun is that? You can see where Ramona's galoshes got stuck in the mud or see Westminster Church, where she played a sheep in the Christmas program.  And the Hollywood Branch of the Multnomah County Library is the stand-in for the Glenwood Library, where Beezus checked out _Big Steve_ (and Ramona colored all over it!)

It's been years since I went on an adventure with Ramona.  I might pick up one of her books next time I'm at my own local library!  Meanwhile, I tucked a few postcards into various books in the Multnomah Main Library Beverly Cleary Children's Room as well as the Popular Library Young Adult collection.

Postcard feature: Butterfly

Something happened to this butterfly that, to our knowledge, has never happened before to any of our postcards.

It moved from one library to another!

The library in which is was discovered is one we have not visited (though, looking at pictures online, I plan to when we are in Denver next!)  How it got from the main Denver branch to the Blair-Caldwell African-American Research Library is a mystery, but that's where it was found!

Complete with a nice long note.  

Hello!  This very cool postcard turned up in a young adult novel at the Blair-Caldwell African American Research Library.  We are a small branch of Denver Public Library, located in the historic Five Points neighborhood & founded by former Denver mayor Wellington Webb.  

It was found by Francis, a shelver, who Googled "Lost Postcards" & found your blog.  What a delightful idea!  Francis kept the card safe, broguht it home to write a note, and will mail it "home" tomorrow on his way to work.  Cheers from Denver!  
Francis

Francis!  Thank you so much for returning our postcard--and for being interested enough to look us up!  I had fun reading about the Blair-Caldwell (and Wellington and Wilma Webb, whose names tickle me!)  I have one, possibly two upcoming trips to the Mile-High City, so I may have a chance to see your branch in person.

-mejaka and Anna Falconer

Things we learn

People have been here.

People we don't even know.

We are tickled. Well, I am.  Anna Falconer is at school, the one class she doesn't take online, and while she knows that the returning party of today's postcard Googled the project and found us, she doesn't know that someone else was here in January, and left a comment!  (Why did I assume that I would get some kind of email notice when someone commented?  There's probably a setting I need to turn on for that...)

Now that I know that two actual strangers have read at least bits of this blog, I have to apologize. I am old.  I began typing on a Royal upright (Anna has an identical typewriter in her room, a gift to her from her dad and me some Christmases ago.)  I took typing--typing, not keyboarding--as a high school sophomore, at the same age Anna is now. I learned touch typing, and I am very fast.  So yes...except for a few times in this very paragraph which has my attention hyperfocused on it, I follow an old rule that came before computers. It was a rule used only in typing, where not only was the type monospaced (each letter taking up the same space regardless of the letter's width), but the space bar produced a space of consistent width.  This meant that there could be some wide spacing within a word (such as between an i and an l, both very narrow letters--a word like "still" would have a lot of white space in it).  So two spaces after a period (making one longer space) helped the readability of sentences laid down in monotype.  

Printers, meanwhile, used both monospaced and proportional typestyles, and had spaces of varying widths with which to work.  They had many more options for spacing, even when working with monospaced typestyles, including putting thin spaces between letters within a word, or putting a thick space at the end of a sentence.  Their type was adjustable and their projects usually done in multiples, so they could print one page and make adjustments before rolling off the next 3000.  They set up a LOT of printed work, and so got a feel for which kind of spacing would be needed where. And proportional type never needed special spacing at the end of a sentence. One common space, just one, after a period.  That was the standard--and a professional knew when to deviate from that standard for readability, and exactly how.

Typewriters, though!  A person with absolutely no experience in typestyles would sit down at that machine and type off their final draft in one go.  In monotype.  With only one space width available.A typed page didn't have the finesse of a printed page.  It was course, graceless, and could be hard to read. It became the convention and the standard, with typewriters, to wrap up a sentence with punctuation and two spaces.

Then came the word processor, and very quickly those printing-industry outsiders, regular unskilled people, could use proportional type and varied spacing.  It makes sense that the rule codified by typesetters would migrate to computer-based word processing, because they had the same options.

Unfortunately, there was an entire generation or two who got caught between.  The two-space rule had been drilled into us.  The one-space rule was something we had never heard of (not being insiders of the printing industry).  And very often, no one explained to us WHY the two-space rule made no sense in computer word processing, or publishing, or blogging.

I do know.  I know that my double spaces can sometimes make for a ragged looking left edge.  I know that they drive some of the Born Digital generations a little buggy.  But at my age, making the switch is hard.  Really hard.  I've been touch-typing by the same rules since before some of you were alive.  It's a very, very ingrained habit.  And I'm at an age where the changing of habits doesn't come easy.

So thank you for being compassionate and tolerant and forgiving me my double spaces.

Postcard Feature: Bird with Mohawk

The little boys at our house are six years old, seven next month.  They get very excited to help with the Postcards.  At six, they're the same age Anna was when this project began, though their artistic sensibilities differ from hers by a large margin.

This postcard is Jonno's work.  A bird and tree--not such different subject matter as some of Anna's first cards.  But Anna's birds never had such angry faces or such aggressive postures (nor, for that matter, do Jesse's).  And the mohawk?  Well, that's unique to Jonno, too.

This postcard was "lost" in the Spokane, Washington library in January of this year. It returned to us this week.

Dear Bailey, thank you for sending our little bird back to us!  I cannot quite read your age, but you might be interested to know that the creator of this postcard was six years old at the time he made it.