Dive Bar Letter Writers is an organization in Forest Park that gives people the opportunity to practice the lost art of written correspondence. It was founded in July 2021 by Kimberly Adami-Hasegawa and combines two of her favorite hobbies — drinking cocktails and letter writing.
The term “dive bar” may sound insulting but many find our dive bars endearing. Letter writer Karen Considine prefers the term “sticky floor bars.” The group chose Goldyburgers because it is welcoming, comfortable and accessible for city dwellers using the Green Line — a place where you’re bound to get mustard on your letter.
When Kimberly was growing up, she was that rare child who actually enjoyed writing thank-you notes for Christmas and birthday gifts. In high school, she had two pen pals, one in France, one in California. She corresponded with them on a monthly basis.
Today, she has 15 pen pals and has developed some very good friendships with her correspondents in New Zealand, the Netherlands and the United States. It was interesting during the pandemic when these far-flung pals were dealing with different degrees of lockdown. New Zealand had the most extreme restrictions and it took six months for Kimberly to get her letter delivered.
She met most of her pen pals through social media. They would later exchange addresses and begin sending “snail mail,” a slow non-internet form of communication. It’s an opportunity to put the phone down and use the pen.
Kimberly enjoys buying new pens, stationery and greeting cards. She even started her own greeting card company: Galaxie Safari. The company combines the names of her favorite typewriters: the Royal Safari and the Smith Corona Galaxie. She owns nine typewriters, including an Olivetti from Italy. She loves using a typewriter because it’s so tactile and she likes the sounds they make.
Few people are enjoying the music of typewriters these days. People are also missing out on the joy of opening a mailbox and getting something besides a bill. Kimberly saves the letters from her pen pals. She has kept the letters her grandparents sent her in college as well. She loves reading their handwriting and hearing their voices.
Kimberly doesn’t just compose long letters. She also uses postcards for brief messages. She carries a stack and fills them out when she’s free, rather than scrolling through her phone. Postcards were the original “emails” and they require little effort. When she travels, she mails them from exotic locations.
She likes personal letters, cards and postcards because they are tangible. The fact that someone took the time to write makes them meaningful. To her, postage stamps are tiny works of art that contain tiny bits of history. Kimberly prefers vintage stamps. She inherited a stamp collection from a friend’s grandfather, and uses sheets of his stamps for postage.
When the USPS issues commemorative stamps, Kimberly buys sheets of them. She also observes “National Card and Letter Writing” month in April. In fact, their next gathering will be April 14 at Goldyburgers.
She admits it’s difficult to find new recruits who love letter writing. But they get up to 15 people to attend their get-togethers, where members are busy writing cards and letters and adding little touches, like confetti, to make their letters more festive.
They are turning back the clock to a simpler time, when people wrote in cursive or used typewriters, when it took weeks to send or receive a letter.
When they knew their mail carrier by name and a family’s milestone events were marked by what came in the mail.
