The Saturday Evening Post July/August 2020

Many years ago, I was working for an indie publisher and became friendly with one of the salesmen. The guy was a bit of a character, but his energy was unflagging and he was a bulwark for the company. Then something changed. I noticed he wasn’t going on sales calls anymore. And one day I walked by his office and saw him passed out at his desk. We went to lunch a few days later and he confided that he’d been diagnosed with HIV. As he spoke, he waved his hands in the air as if to wash this news away. He said his friends were terrified for him, but he assured me he felt fine, and it was all a big mistake. It wasn’t, of course, and a few months later,…

Kimberley Lovato “Writing to someone in your own handwriting and words means more than you realize to the recipient,” says Lovato, who highlights the physical and mental health benefits of putting pen to paper in “Having a Pen Pal Is Good Medicine” (page 10). “With COVID-19 keeping us cooped up, it’s been fun to send letters and cards to people again, and wonder about their reaction to opening their mailboxes and finding a letter.” Jeff Nilsson In 1920, Prohibition was enacted to reduce crime and solve social problems, but the solution made the problem worse, as Nilsson notes in “Drying Out America” (page 32), A hundred years on, “a sizeable number of Americans would like to see Prohibition return,” says the Post’s archivist. “Modern versions of old temperance groups are still trying to…

Horse of a Different Color? After extolling the many virtues of the majestic horse in “The Horse Listeners” (May/June), why is the author Stacey McKenna photographed mounted on a mule on the Contributor page? John H. Roberts, Home, Pennsylvania EDITOR’S NOTE: Good question. We asked McKenna about this, and she replied that therapists use mules as well, adding, “And though I’ve never seen it, donkeys are used in equine therapy, too.” Scott Free? Your article about the ad from the 1920s for Scott toilet paper, which even then couldn’t be promoted as “splinter free” (“Scott Goes Negative,” Vault, May/June), brought back a memory from my tour of duty in Thailand in 1971-72. Due to a widespread gastrointestinal upset going through the troops, there was a serious shortage of toilet paper, so base had to purchase…

When Steven Kamala resp onded to a n advertisement for a pen pal in the back of Teen Magazine in the early ’80s, he could not have known then that he’d be laying the foundation for what would become a lifelong friendship. Nor could he have imagined that pen-to-paper communication, nearly four decades later, would be rendered a lost art thanks to marvels known as email and Snapchat. But that’s what happened to Kamala, a teen from Wisconsin who is now a 52-year-old hair stylist in San Francisco. He estimates that he and his pen pal, Mohini Mistry, who lives outside of London, England, have exchanged close to a thousand letters. The two have met several dozen times too, but despite advanced technology, they are sticking to their old ways. “I’ve…

Of the manifold gifts we have received from Sweden — ABBA, full-body massage, and Ikea, among others — my favorite is the smorgasbord. Interestingly, it wasn’t until 1939 that smorgasbords, which originated in the 14th century, finally showed up on our shores, at the New York World’s Fair. Americans quickly embraced what Swedes had long enjoyed. The underlying concept — value and excess — played perfectly into our insatiable appetite for endless quantities of practically everything. Naturally, it wasn’t long before smorgasbords found their way to Las Vegas, where casino owners understood the appeal of visitors bellying up to tables piled high with food before bellying up to gaming tables piled high with chips. “Those buffets are all about debauchery and abundance, so they fit right in with the gestalt of…

When I was a kid, my brothers and I published a neighborhood newspaper called The Broadway Blab. Each issue was two pages of salacious gossip and was quite successful until our parents, who had apparently never heard of the First Amendment, confiscated our pencils and shut us down. At the time, I believed censorship to be the worst thing to befall a writer, but I now know having to write a timely and relevant column four months in advance is a far greater challenge. For instance, I’m writing this a few short days after Indiana’s governor banned nonessential travel due to COVID-19, but still don’t know whether this will be the worst pandemic in modern history or a viral blip that will end as quickly as it began. I don’t…