Like, you aren’t necessarily next door neighbors. You’d have to take the streetcar or bus or commuter rail some distance to go meet your friend. You can’t text “sorry the train is 30 minutes late”, because no cell phones, no internet, no tracking buses or trains on your smartphone. No payphones or landlines.
Letters are only for those cross-continental, cross-oceanic relationships. If you live in the same city, then well you’d still have to meet in person cuz it’s not the digital age, no doomscrolling social media and sending texts and memes.
I feel like those were the days where you could have true friendships in society, not “having friends to send memes”.
Iv done that one! On my walk home in the 8th grade there was this really nice old lady who would flag down random school kids to deliver envelopes all over the place. Would give you 5 bucks to do it!
She would also let you see her tits if she was drunk enough.
Found out years later it was a whore house, but the old lady who ran it was really nice to everyone routinely would let you sit in her patio if it was raining or snowing really hard and warm up. You weren’t allowed inside proper for obvious reasons.
And she was always a good one to go to if you needed some extra cash and were willing to work, mowing lawns running letters or going and buying groceries for her.
Never met anyone who disliked her. She also had the only nice property on the street. Everything was always clean and tidy.
Wild to think back how normal everyone just considered it.