At the corner of the city, you can occasionally see green mailboxes.
They stood there alone, watching the endless traffic and the crowds of people, silently enduring the change of the city's day and night, hustle and tranquility.
Whenever I see the postal box, the short and long love years appear before my eyes bit by bit.
I remember the first letter I wrote was for my uncle. My uncle works in Jiande and writes letters to my father every month to ask about my grandmother and my family’s health and life.
One day, my father received another letter from my uncle. When he was about to reply to the letter in the evening, he suddenly said to me: "You are about to graduate from elementary school, and you should learn to write letters."
Actually, I have learned to write letters in school, but I have not practiced it and I forgot most of it. So my father taught me word by word:
The first line of the first line writes the other person's respectful title, the second line says hello, and the third line writes the main text in two empty spaces. The main text must first respond to the other party’s inquiry in the letter, then talk about other things, and finally, it is a sincere blessing. Then write your humble name and name in the lower right corner, and write your date under the name.
This letter was written by me on behalf of my father, so I called my uncle the eldest brother and called myself my younger brother.
My father specifically stated after the letter that I wrote the letter for him, and then taught me to write an envelope, sealed the mouth and pasted an eight-cent Great Wall stamp, and asked him to take it away when the postman came.
A few days later, my uncle replied, praising me for not only being able to write, but also writing well. I was very happy, and later I often wrote for my father.
Let’s talk about the first letter I received in my life. It was during the summer vacation of 1982, an admission notice from a normal school, and a letter that changed my life fate.
At that time, the people who were able to reach the score line for physical examinations at university and secondary schools were all reported by the town radio station solemnly after the broadcast of the county radio station at night. In order to ensure that the notification was announced, they would broadcast it several times in a row.
Because I was taking the high school entrance examination, I only hoped to get into college after I was admitted to high school. I never thought I would get into junior high school, so my parents and I didn’t pay attention to the notification from the town radio station. The neighbor next door only knew when he heard it and came to tell us.
After I was confirmed to be on the list of the physical examination scores, our whole family was very excited because according to the policy at that time, if you get into a junior high school, you can jump out of the farming school, eat commercial grain, and lock in your iron rice bowl in advance.
There are more than 20 villages in our town, but at that time, there were only one or twenty people who could go to the physical examination score line of colleges, secondary and junior colleges every year. For example, in our village, since the resumed the college entrance examination in 1977, only one person passed the exam before me. Therefore, it will cause a lot of sensation in which village, which children of any family are admitted to college and technical secondary school.
Soon the news that I was admitted to junior high school college spread throughout the neighboring villages, and my relatives also knew about it. When they met at the market, they would be busy congratulating my father.
After passing the physical examination, my parents and I started to wait for the admission notice. The more we went, the more anxious we felt, the longer we were, the more we felt that the days were long and the more we couldn’t sleep or eat. Especially my father was even more anxious and he had to ask when he saw the postman coming from the village front road every day.
It seems that it was August 22, and I finally received the registration mail sent by the normal school. Our family's heart finally came to an end, and my parents happily prepared me for admission supplies.
School is in Jinhua . Although I am only eighty or ninety kilometers away from home, I have never traveled far away. I just arrived at school and am not familiar with the place, so I miss everything in my hometown. My deep longing for my parents, relatives and friends, and my parents’ infinite concern for me can only be conveyed through pieces of paper.
There is a green postage box in front of the school library. The mailers and receivers of each class go to the library once every morning and afternoon, and take back the newspaper letters and distribute them to the students. Whenever this happens, we are full of expectations and hope that there are greetings from relatives and friends from afar.
I have to send several letters every week, to my family, relatives and friends, and to my classmates, greet each other, report safety, communicate information, and exchange feelings...
Later, I fell in love with literature, and the so-called childish "works" would be sent to newspapers and magazines a few days, and then wait for the reply to it uneasy. Most of them are like mud bulls entering the sea without any news, and a small number will receive rejections and will also have editors’ replies pointing out the reasons for not hiring.
Soon after, I fell in love with stamp collection. While hoping to receive letters from relatives and friends, I also hoped that the one posted on the envelope was a good stamp that I had not collected.
Because of stamp collection, I no longer buy 8-cent Great Wall ordinary stamps at the school convenience store, but go to the post office to buy Jite tickets with a face value of 8 cents and send letters.
For economic reasons, I mainly collected letters and tickets for . When each letter was sent to classmates and friends, the words "cut out the stamp and send it back" must be indicated.
I know that I collect stamps, and my relatives and friends gave me the envelopes with good stamps, and some directly cut or tore them off for me. I am happy for a long time whenever I get a stamp I don’t have.
After graduation, they started working. The students went their separate ways. Everyone passed on their letters. The words were like meeting each other, and the sound, appearance and smile were just in front of them. After working on
, I was diligent in writing, and the number of submissions was gradually increasing. From time to time, I would receive sample drafts and remuneration notices or remittance slips, which made me very happy.
paper is short and long, in those days, whether it is spreading out plain paper and writing letters, or receiving letters from afar and severing thousands of mountains and rivers, it is an indescribable and beautiful enjoyment.
It is a pity that as an ancient communication method, letters are rapidly disappearing in the intelligent era, and green postal boxes have gradually become decorations.
But a poem that says "The carriage and horses are slow since the past and the letters are far away" will hit the softness in countless people's hearts and arouse people's infinite nostalgia for that year.
