Dig in With Graver: Pizza, Beer and Postcards

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

In 1992, when I was 14, I started writing to a pen pal named Katie Saville.

Over the years, we exchanged dozens of letters detailing the highs and lows of high school, favorite songs and movies and our dreams for the future. We decorated the envelopes with drawings and witticisms that were just as entertaining as the missives inside.

It didn’t matter that Katie lived less than five miles away from me in Plum and we saw each other every day in English class — those handwritten notes were, and still are, a key part of our friendship.

But, as we entered the Digital Age, the heartfelt dispatches turned into hurried texts. At this point, we communicate in memes and emojis.

The Pittsburgh Correspondence Co-op has restored my enthusiasm for snail mail.

Allie Cheroutes started the group shortly after moving to the Strip District from Washington state, where she was a member of the Portland Correspondence Co-op. There are similar clubs throughout the world.

“I like writing letters because it’s not connected to a sense of timeliness,” says Cheroutes, who is 34 years old. “You’re not on a rigid schedule or in a digital mindset. Getting something that is handwritten is such an intimate thing. It’s a way to say, ‘I’m thinking about you. I love you.’”

The Pittsburgh chapter meets at Larimer’s East End Brewing Co. from 6 to 8 p.m. on the third Tuesday of each month. Everyone’s welcome, from Baby Boomers with perfect penmanship to folks who were born with a cellphone in their hand.

Participants can bring their own crafting supplies or sift through a sea of old magazines, newspapers, photographs, textiles, postcards and paper scraps Cheroutes purchased from the Pittsburgh Center for Creative Reuse in Point Breeze. Hell, you can legally mail a potato through the United States Postal Service — with or without packaging — if the mood strikes. Forget a pen pal, I want a Spuddy Buddy!

Since there were no taters on the table, I ordered a pizza and a beer and plunged into the supply pile. There were a dozen other adults there who were happily cutting, pasting and chatting like kindergarteners.

It was the most wholesomely tactile way to spend a Tuesday night.

Alexis Winter of Verona was busy making a card for her best friend in Los Angeles.

“My mom always wrote me letters when I was growing up and I remember thinking that it was so lame,” she says with a laugh, “but I still have all of them. It’s nice to have tangible keepsakes that remind us of our friends and family. Everything is so fast-paced in this society, so slowing down, in general, is important. When you’re able to put intention and care into these things it’s much more special. And it’s fun!”

PHOTO BY KRISTY GRAVER

Since stumbling upon the Pittsburgh Correspondence Co-op’s Instagram page, my algorithm is unironically introducing me to all sorts of analog pastimes, from postage stamp collecting and collage clubs to zine making and stationary stores. Next week, I’m interviewing someone who’s opening a video rental shop in Lawrenceville!

Cheroutes describes snail mail as “a journal you send to someone else.”

As we inch closer to age 50, Katie and I are planning a day when we can pore over the letters we wrote to each other in our youth. I anticipate a lot of laughs and cringe-worthy moments as I relive what it was like to be that painfully shy 14-year-old girl in the ‘90s.

Last week, Katie received an unexpected card in the mail with no return address. She gleefully ripped open the envelope only to find a get-well-soon message from her doctor’s office; a nice gesture, for sure, but not a cherished keepsake to add to her collection.

But, I just know she’ll love the postcard I made for her at a brewery while I was eating pizza.