Love, Jerry

With the current rage for tweets and instant messages and texts and short notes on Facebook, there seems to be a trend away from the old niceties in letter writing. No one seems to have time to go into any detail in their correspondence, feeling obligated to use a minimum of characters and the annoying text shorthand ("LOL" especially annoying). And the old salutations and closures are now long gone. I was raised in a time when it was automatic to open any letter with a “Dear,” and close it with a “Yours truly” or a “Sincerely” or, when it was to a friend or relative, a “Love.” Now people are too uncomfortable to use that closure, instead opting for nothing but a name. People think I really mean I love them when I close with a “Love.” In many cases I do, but I don’t mean to make anyone uncomfortable when I say it at the end of a letter. It’s just the way I was taught in my youth. The “Dear” in the salutation doesn’t really mean I hold the recipient “dear” in my heart. The “Love” in the closing doesn’t mean I’m hot for the recipient. It’s just a nice way to open and close a letter. So, dear readers out there, I’ll close this blog with a “Love, Jerry.”