It’s been a manic day in Highland Park, one of my best days in recent or even long-term memory. There are lots of small little factors, but most of them are more about the absence of badness than the presence of goodness. For what that’s worth, that’s been enough to induce veritable euphoria compared to recent trends, so I’m not going to complain or look it in the mouth of take any of the other dismissive actions with which we usually regard upswings or energy bursts.
I’m also rapidly realizing that I might need to create a category of some kind to denote posts about life in Jersey specifically, a la my If You’re Going to San Francisco category from a couple years back. I’ll accept submissions for the title, though I’m personally partial to the line from “What Dreams May Come” (incidentally itself a category title herein) “If I could find you in Hell, I can find you in Jersey.” But that may be a little harsh to this state and the implications are a little overbearing, even for someone as ambivalent about this place as I am. Which brings me to the subject of today’s post in earnest.
So I’ve been on an epic quest the last few weeks for postcards. But not just any postcards, mind you, postcards from/of New Brunswick or at least Rutgers. I’ll obscure my reasons for this quest for the moment, but suffice it to say that a fairly serious project that is now in arrears was riding on successful conclusion of said quest. Today I stepped up my game after already being turned away from several places, and yet neither the discount store downtown, the pharmacy/grocery downtown, nor the Rutgers bookstore carry a single postcard of any kind. This despite the pharmacy (RiteAid) carrying no less than one and a half full aisles (that’s three aisle-sides if you’re scoring at home) of insipid greeting cards.
I was going to offer the benefit of the doubt that maybe no one sends postcards anymore, unless they’re mailing them to PostSecret. But why would there be such a gross disparity between frequency of Hallmark cards and postcards? Don’t people enjoy receiving both? And don’t most tourist destinations, or really places of any kind, still stock postcards en masse? Is New Brunswick specifically, or Jersey generally, so down on itself that they really don’t believe anyone will want to send postcards from here at all?
Almost everyone I asked referred me to the post office to continue my quest. Now admittedly they may have some at the post office, but that’s not really something the post office does, is it? Postcard stamps, sure, I got those there. But postcards? Really? I guess it’s possible they’re available there, but I feel like I’d get laughed out of the building if I asked, or at least have some old tired lady explain to me patiently that the post office is in the business of helping people mail things, not selling that which is going to be mailed.
It’s a bad sign of the state of this quest that I actually came home and looked up New Brunswick postcards on the Internet. Yes, I know that the Internet is replacing much of what we do in the real world and is probably responsible for the localized, if not general, demise of postcards as a practice. But really? I can’t find postcards of my town in the town, so I have to resort to trying to have them shipped in?! I’d ask what’s wrong with this picture, but it’s precisely a picture I’m failing to acquire.
I mean, yes, New Brunswick is not exactly the Grand Canyon. But it’s decently pretty and contains a great deal of historical longevity and significance. And the university is a real point of pride statewide. Who wouldn’t want to write home about their visit to the campus that dates back to 1766 or even the grease trucks and the new football stadium? How can the bookstore not sell any postcards?!
Put it this way, if the debate thing falls through, I may just have a new Jersey industry at my fingertips.
I will leave you with what, sadly, is the best I can find online as a cutting edge postcard of the highlights of modern New Brunswick:
