h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

A h2g2 journal plus, breaking news:

A couple of young ladies in Elmira, New York, received a postcard by time machine this week.

http://www.stargazette.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2012311210073

The postcard was intended for two other young ladies, the Liesenring sisters, who lived in their house in 1943. There was a war on, and their parents were visiting their brother at an army camp. Somehow, the postcard didn't get to the house until 2012. Hannah Podgorny, who is a seventh-grader, plans to write a report about it for school. Good going! We hope she'll join h2g2 one day.

My folks lived near Elmira for 11 years. Actually, they lived in the neighbouring town of Horseheads. Yes, children, there is a Horseheads, New York. The name has a romantic story attached to it, relating to the American Revolution:

http://www.horseheads.org/index.php?n=about.history

Elmira's full of quirky history. Mark Twain lived there. He even wrote 'Huckleberry Finn' there, though my mother used to laugh at that postcard that showed the Mighty Chemung River (more like a wadi) and claimed it reminded Twain of the Mississippi...there's a Mark Twain Hotel, and a Tom Sawyer Hotel, and a Huckleberry Finn Hotel...one of those, I remember, had steam heat, and drove my dad's boss nuts when he stayed there on a business trip...

If you go to Elmira College, you can admire Twain's study. It's shaped like a pilot house:

http://www.elmira.edu/academics/distinctive_programs/twain_center/study

Here's a driving tour of Elmira, which is full of fascinating factoids about the city - such as who had the first ping pong table there, and where somebody found a tarantula in a bunch of bananas. We also learn that fishermen used to night fish with dynamite in the Mighty Chemung. That river's low, until it isn't - when it floods, the shop owners collect on their insurance.

http://www.chemunghistory.com/mainpages/drivingtour.html

I love #10, don't you?

'10. Statue of Thomas K. Beecher in Wisner Park (Main Street in the middle of town). Elmirans once planted sequoia trees in this park to honor Beecher. Yeah, like that was going to work.'

One of my favourite memories of visiting my family in Horseheads concerns the local history museum.

http://www.horseheadshistorical.com/

My mom and I stopped by there on a whim, and discovered a notebook on display, with a set of transcribed letters from a Union soldier during the Civil War to his sister, the beautifully-named Elmira. Yes, that was her name. We completely lost track of time, my mom and I, as we stood there and synchronised our reading speeds, taking in every word of this young man's wartime journey. We left with a stronger sense of what they'd all been through.

Elmira's other gift to the world is the longest-running glider contest in the US. Elmira boasts itself as the 'soaring capital of America'.

http://www.harrishillsoaring.org/www/Home.html

On good days, you can look up and see gliders.

Okay, so maybe the mail gets delivered late. But it's a pretty cool place.

Good for Hannah!

Samuel Clemens aka Mark Twain is one of the dinner guests at my Imaginary Dinner Party. I think he's really because of his link to Halley's Comet A60281831 and the fact that he predicted his own demise with such accuracy. Oh and of course he's been on the starship "Enterprise"

See? Everything's connected.

Sorry that I'm a bit late in getting around to this thread, but that really is a lovely story. I love old postcards - I think I showed you my blog, right? I always like thinking about the people who wrote them, and those who received them, and trying to find details and make little stories. And so far I've had two awesome coincidences where I managed to contact the original writer (and in one case, actually sent her the card back), but those were both relatively recent, not to mention the fact they've already been sent and received long before I found them - so really, it's not nearly as cool as the story you're telling here.
The mail comes through... eventually.

That's cool, though! What a great idea, to contact the people who sent or received the cards.

Well, I try to do that sometimes, when I can, but have only had luck these two times...