Some years ago a friend vacationing in Africa sent me a postcard.

That it had a picture of a "nearly nude" young lady on the front was possibly just incidental; but it did take a little over seven months to arrive in my mailbox, complete with thumbtack holes in the four corners indicating it had been posted on someone's bulletin board for a time, and a small piece of pickle stuck over part of the return address, suggesting that it was "sorted" while someone ate lunch.

While we were moving, we filed a temporary forwarding address to have our mail sent to my son's box. Three years later, having filed a corrected forwarding address to have ours all sent to our new address, we still receive about as much of my son's mail as he does. (His mailbox is on the opposite side of the street, about 48 feet from ours.)

Since we moved into the new home we've been receiving a magazine addressed to a person who may have been a friend of the former occupant. After about three consecutive issues were put back in our box with notation "THIS PERSON IS NOT AT THIS ADDRESS" the magazine "corrected" their mailings, and for almost another two years now we've continued to receive the same magazine now ADDRESSED TO US. As the magazine is trash of no interest to us, we certainly won't renew the subscription, although it was apparently prepaid for several (unknown how many) years. We hope it will expire soon, as our recyle cart is usually overfilled with it and the other junk mail.

John