Please Mr. Postman

It might sound stupid and whinny, but even though I’m in a foreign country with new friends, a girlfriend, have my own apartment and am experiencing new things I’d never thought I’d have the opportunity to pursue, there still exists a feeling of lament. A feeling of homesickness.
While I’m no quitter, there were more than a few Assistant English Teachers (AETs) on the JET Programme who could not handle the life in Japan and chose to leave. One bugger, an American guy, who in my third year in Ohtawara decided to leave Japan so he purchased an airplane ticket, sold all of his apartment’s furnishings and left—without telling anyone… you know, like his board of education employers. To top it off, the furnishings didn’t even belong to him. Our apartments are rentals and come fully furnished with items the employer purchases on our behalf to make us more comfortable, and so save us quite a few Yen (Dollars/Pounds/Euros). What an ass, eh?
In Japan for about two months, the euphoria I felt at being here had begun to wane, because I constantly found my thoughts drifting back to my home in Toronto.
Phone calls to my family only seem to exacerbate the feeling. I missed my mother, father, brother, my three rottweillers, my cat, my friends, my comic books and my televisions shows – especially hockey which was just starting training camp for my beloved Maple Leafs.
It’s why watching the mailbox became a pastime of mine, one that lasted the entire three years there.
I don’t mind telling you that getting a letter from home was like water to a thirst-starved wanderer in the desert. Lifesaving.
My mother realized that and made an effort to send monthly shipments of a letter, food products – microwavable lasagna shells, and VCR (remember those) tapes of television shows my brother Ben would tape for me—it would always be a pot pourri of shows – maybe a hockey game, The Simpsons, Seinfeld, Star Trek: TNG, comedy shows galore… always stuff I could share… and to Matthew’s credit, his folks did the same… we were looked after. But the feeling of abandonment or loneliness always seem to pervade my oft-time moody personae.
Along with standard news from my family, it was also uplifting to get a letter from a friend. When I left Toronto, everyone said they would write. Everyone being maybe 25 people. The reality is that about half of them wrote – once.
All of those writers except for two people – maintained a more constant letter-writing presence: my good friend Rob Jones who has been my friend since I was 14, and this cab driver named Doug McIntosh whom I had only met once a couple of weeks prior to leaving for Japan.
Rob first. I’m unsure if I was Rob’s only friend, but I was certainly his best. While he never sent over a package of videos, he more than made up for it with letter frequency. Over my three years there, Rob sent 69 letters. Remember… this is in the days before e-mail where one had to put pen to paper, find an envelope, buy a stamp and then post it. How Rob was able to send me so many entertaining letters without poisoning himself with envelope glue, I’ll never know. But he did it. And I’m here to tell him now just how much it meant to me.
Also – and here you have Rob to blame for this – but he’s the one that kind of got me started on this whole creative writing kick.
Sure I had been writing a primitive version of It’s A Wonderful Rife once a month for the Tochigi-ken AET newsletter, but it was the letters that got me thinking about writing professionally when I got back home.
For Rob’s upcoming birthday at the end of March, I thought I would write him a letter every weekday for the month as a cheap present. After three days of “How’s it going? I’m fine” crap, I decided to write a creative short story instead. For some reason, the creative juices were flowing, and I actually wrote three that day. And two or three or four the next, and every day until it was his birthday… I wrote close to 60 short stories that month. Lots of comedy, but other more series stuff too. Despite the grammatical and spelling errors, that stuff was/is dynamite and I’ve converted more than a few of them into comic book stories (www.strangefuncomics.com).
So… blame Rob for my writing. I do.
And there’s Doug who equaled Rob's output of 69 letters. A little background info is required here. I was 24-years-old to Doug’s 41 when we met in 1990. I was working for the Toronto Star as a reporter on a summer internship program. On a hot and humid July day, I was asked to go out and do ‘pick-ups’. That means I had to go out to the homes of people and pick-up photographs of a loved one who had just passed away. That job sucked. Its still bothers me to think about it.
I went down to the line of cabs parked in front of the Toronto Star, peered into the open passenger window and asked if he could take me around for the day, as I had several photos to get. A deep, clean voice that made me think of radio beckoned an assent.
I still have no idea why I did it, but I opened the front passenger door and sat beside him.
We made intros and shook hands… but who sits in the front seat of a taxi when there’s plenty of room at the back? Me, I suppose. 
We spend the day together making the pick-ups – I bought us lunch at a Harvey’s, and at the end of the day, he knew more about me than I knew about him. He said (and I quote), “Ya gotta write to me from Japan,” and gave me his business card.
A couple of weeks into Japan, I began writing letters to everyone on the computer at the OBOE. Even though I am loathe to admit it, I sent off a few form letters – changing only the addressee name. Doug’s was one of those. Hey, writing was hard back then.
A week later, I opened up my mailbox at my apartment – and lo and behold, there’s a letter from Doug. I wrote back – and surprise, surprise, so did he.
All I can tell you is that we became story-telling sounding boards for the other… but more importantly, we became friends. And now while I’m older than Doug was when we first met, we’ve only physically seen each other a few times, but the letters keep a-coming… each as interesting and heart-warming as the first.
It’s funny where friendship can occur. Sure still being friends with Rob is to be expected (It is, isn’t it?) And so, too making a friendship with Matthew? But how does a chance taxi ride turn into a 20-year-friendship? I have Japan to thank for all of that.
Letters kept me sane(ish). Who would have thought that writing would ever be so important to a writer?
Ending in a melodramatic note: Why is it that it takes so little time to write and send a letter, but to receive one, months seem to pass?

Somewhere starting a letter to Doug (I’ll see Rob when we go comic book shopping later!),
Andrew Joseph
Today's title is by The Marvelettes.