August 18, 2005: Headlines: Stamps: N... Log Out | Topics | Search
Moderators | Register | Edit Profile

Peace Corps Online » Discussion » Bulletin Board Posts » June 10, 2005: Headlines: Stamps: PCOL Exclusive: A reporter for the NY Times asks RPCVs about "Upside down stamps" » August 18, 2005: Headlines: Stamps: New York Times: Here's the final story: Stamps provide ways for lovers to send message « Previous Next »

  Thread Last Poster Posts Pages Last Post
  Start New Thread        

Author Message
Admin1 (admin) (pool-151-196-37-25.balt.east.verizon.net - 151.196.37.25)
Posted on Saturday, August 20, 2005 - 12:21 pm:   

Here's the final story: Stamps provide ways for lovers to send message

Here's the final story: Stamps provide ways for lovers to send message

"I heard it was a way to say, 'I love you' and to gesture that your world is upside down without that person," said Michael Palagonia, who put his stamps upside down on the weekly letters he sent to his girlfriend while he was serving in Guinea in the Peace Corps.

Here's the final story: Stamps provide ways for lovers to send message

Showing love without saying a word
Stamps provide ways for lovers to send message
By IAN URBINA
New York Times

Showing love without saying a wordShowing love without saying a wordShowing love without saying a wordEvery other day, when Janie Bielefeldt writes to her husband, who is deployed in Afghanistan, she places her stamps upside down and diagonally on the letters as a way to say "I miss you." Susan Haggerty says "I love you" by putting her stamps upside down on letters to her son, stationed in Iraq.

Noma Byng does the same thing with the letters she sends to her husband when he is serving abroad as a way of trying to convey what words cannot. "You do everything you can to make the letters seem like more than a piece of paper," Byng said.

For most people, the front of an envelope is simply a place for addresses and postage, and a crooked stamp indicates little more than that the sender was in a hurry. But for others, this tiny sliver of real estate is home to a coded language, hidden in plain sight, that has been passed down through the generations for more than a century.

"Another military wife told me that her grandmother used to flip her stamps when writing her husband, who was deployed overseas," said Bielefeldt, a former Marine who lives in Jacksonville, N.C. "It's just something you hear about on the base."

A long-distance version of the romantic language of hand-held fans and flowers, the so-called language of stamps emerged in the Victorian era as a discreet method of courtship at a time when parents often censored mail.

And though, like the epistolary tradition itself, the stealthy code has waned with the emergence of technology, it replenishes itself slightly in the face of war, distance, parental disapproval and anything else that might get in the way of people's connection to each other.

"It tends to resurge during war times or whenever else there are large numbers of people separated from their loved ones," said John M. Hotchner, a former president of the American Philatelic Society. "These are times when there is more letter writing and more emotions poured into those letters."

For some, the stamps represent a valuable tool of affection. "My husband is good at drawing, so he always puts a tree, which symbolizes the growth of our feelings for each other," said Byng, 27, who lives in Oak Harbor, Wash. "I can't draw, so I just use the stamps to say what I want to say."

And while the struggle to cope with longing is at least as old as language itself, the placement of stamps to send messages had its heyday during the 1890s in England with the popularity of postcards, said Roy Nuhn, a researcher who has studied the history of stamp placement. Though more affordable and attractive than letters, postcards left text exposed to any nosy intermediary, so people found other ways to get their point across, said Nuhn, 68, who added that he took interest in the topic while serving in the military during the Korean War and noticing other soldiers receiving letters with angled stamps.

But the language has narrowed since the turn of the 20th century, when postcards printed in various countries featured keys that helped explain the message behind each stamp positioning. Expression was also limited by the mechanization of the postal system, which led some systems to impose rules confining stamps to a single corner of a piece of mail. The prevalence of e-mail has furthered this decline, except in contexts like prisons, war zones and less-developed countries where electronic communication is less of an option.

"I heard it was a way to say, 'I love you' and to gesture that your world is upside down without that person," said Michael Palagonia, who put his stamps upside down on the weekly letters he sent to his girlfriend while he was serving in Guinea in the Peace Corps.

When Christine Prosano temporarily broke romantic ties with her husband, who is in prison in upstate New York, she stopped putting her stamps upside down on her letters, placing them sideways instead, as a gesture of friendship, not love.

More than a trivial sideshow, the practice of conveying secret messages from the front of mail long precedes the language of stamps and the use of these codes is part of the reason that we prepay for our postage today.

Before 1840, when postage stamps were first used in England, the recipient of a letter paid for its postage. And since the cost was often prohibitively expensive, people began placing small marks and symbols on the front of mail. These codes allowed senders to convey a message to the recipient without obliging the recipient to pay for the formal acceptance of the letter. The loss of revenue from the use of these codes was one of the reasons that the British government adopted the system of prepaid stamps that is used almost everywhere now.

But for all their scrappiness, these methods of makeshift communication leave room for misunderstanding.

"I think it took several letters before my girlfriend realized that the upside-down stamp wasn't a mistake," said Palagonia, who now teaches English-as-a-second-language classes at a public school in Phoenix.

This potential for miscommunication was even worse when there was a wider range of possible positions. According to keys published in the early 20th century, a stamp placed in the upper right corner of an envelope, right side up but tilted slightly to the left, means, "Will you be mine?" in England, "Why don't you answer?" in Germany, "A kiss" in Denmark, "How will we meet?" in Finland, and, "Your antipathy grieves me," in Estonia.

The diversity of images used on the stamps also added to the possible confusion.

Gerald McKiernan, a spokesman for the U.S. Postal Service, recalled that during the 1960s, turning flag stamps upside down became a popular gesture of protest against the Vietnam War because upside-down flags signify distress.

Prosano, whose husband is serving a 20-year prison sentence for armed robbery, said she was confused at first when he began turning his stamps upside down on his letters. Some of the stamps had American flags on them, and Prosano, 37, a travel agent who lives in Brooklyn, said she was initially worried that her husband might be indicating that he was in trouble. He reassured her that he was fine when they spoke soon thereafter.

"When you are away from someone for so long," she said, "you watch for every little thing."





When this story was posted in August 2005, this was on the front page of PCOL:


Contact PCOLBulletin BoardRegisterSearch PCOLWhat's New?

Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
The Peace Corps Library Date: March 27 2005 No: 536 The Peace Corps Library
Peace Corps Online is proud to announce that the Peace Corps Library is now available online. With over 30,000 index entries in 500 categories, this is the largest collection of Peace Corps related stories in the world. From Acting to Zucchini, you can find hundreds of stories about what RPCVs with your same interests or from your Country of Service are doing today. If you have a web site, support the "Peace Corps Library" and link to it today.

Top Stories and Breaking News PCOL Magazine Peace Corps Library RPCV Directory Sign Up

Military Option sparks concerns Date: August 3 2005 No: 698 Military Option sparks concerns
The U.S. military, struggling to fill its voluntary ranks, is allowing recruits to meet part of their military obligations by serving in the Peace Corps. Read why there is rising opposition to the program among RPCVs. Director Vasquez says the agency has a long history of accepting qualified applicants who are in inactive military status. John Coyne says "Not only no, but hell no!" Latest: RPCV Chris Matthews to discuss the issue on Hardball tonight.

Top Stories: August 1, 2005 Date: July 31 2005 No: 693 Top Stories: August 1, 2005
Paul E. Tsongas Public Service Award unveiled 21 July
Charlie Peters writes book on Wendell Willkie 25 July
Protests against Peace Corps in Bangladesh 30 July
Christopher R. Hill leads talks with North Korea 29 July
Chris Shays blocks senator's plan to reopen bases 29 July
Dr. Joann LaPerla-Morales leads Middlesex College 28 July
Jacob Mundy supports struggle in Western Sahara 28 July
Paul Theroux blames big oil for ‘catastrophe’ in Ecuador 28 July
Bruce Wilkinson has called Africa home for 17 years 25 July
Taylor Hackford producing "E-Ring" for tv 25 July
Robert Haas to retire as head of Levi Strauss 24 July
Brent Lynn turned Janus Overseas Fund around 24 July
James Rupert says Musharraf walks tightrope in Pakistan 23 July
Thomas O. Mann describes Carp Fishing in France 22 July
Rob Quigley receives Maybeck Award in Architecture 22 July
Blackwill says visit by India PM a 'historical breakthrough' 21 July
NPCA studies membership structure 21 July
Mark Lenzi says Poles deserve the West's support 20 July
Mark Gearan weighs in on Bush's Supreme Court pick 20 July
Ofelia Miramontes championed bilingual education 18 July
Hank Stelzer supports school for blind in Lesotho 16 July

Special Events for RPCVs Date: July 31 2005 No: 694 Special Events for RPCVs
RPCV's "Taking the Early Bus" at Cal State until Aug 15
"Artists and Patrons in Traditional African Cultures" in NY thru Sept 30
See RPCV Musical "Doing Good" in CA through Sept
RPCV Film Festival in DC in October

July 17, 2005: This Week's Top Stories Date: July 17 2005 No: 690 July 17, 2005: This Week's Top Stories
C. Payne Lucas writes "Can we win the war on HIV/Aids?" 11 July
Director Vasquez hints at expansion in Bangladesh 17 July
Why didn't I spend my life helping others? 17 July
John Beasley returns to the islands of Micronesia 17 July
Jennifer Field to study glacier melting 17 July
Tucker McCravy works with Serendib in Sri Lanka 17 July
David Vick writes "Waging civilized warfare" 16 July
Tom Petri says Nelson helped to promote civility 16 July
Peace Corps Director Visits Volunteers in Mongolia 15 July
John Bridgeland writes "An example for Boomers" 15 July
Robert Blackwill says India and US have a great future 15 July
Peace Corps debuts new internet recruitment tool 14 July
Eight New Country Directors Appointed 13 July
Shelton Johnson Honored for Buffalo Soldier program 13 July
Bill Lorenz leads trek for Sudanese refugees 12 July
Emilie Pryor says Peace Corps ignores Lariam problems 12 July
DDN is Award Finalist for reporting on PC Safety 11 July
Randy Lewis to hire 200 people with cognitive disabilities 10 July
Maryland needs people like Tom Lewis 10 July
Dan DeWayne puts on music festival 10 July

Friends of the Peace Corps 170,000  strong Date: April 2 2005 No: 543 Friends of the Peace Corps 170,000 strong
170,000 is a very special number for the RPCV community - it's the number of Volunteers who have served in the Peace Corps since 1961. It's also a number that is very special to us because March is the first month since our founding in January, 2001 that our readership has exceeded 170,000. And while we know that not everyone who comes to this site is an RPCV, they are all "Friends of the Peace Corps." Thanks everybody for making PCOL your source of news for the Returned Volunteer community.


Read the stories and leave your comments.






Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: New York Times

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Stamps

PCOL21729
26

Add Your Message Here
Post:
Username: Posting Information:
This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Password:
E-mail:
Options: Enable HTML code in message
Action: