A friend in Cleveland
recently asked me to help out her fifth grader with a school project. The
students were tasked with soliciting postcards from around the country. The
postcards were to be mailed to the classroom and include a few pertinent local
facts. It wasn't all that long ago that my own fifth grader received a similar
assignment and I appreciated the response she received from friends and family
so I readily agreed to help out.
It never occurred to me that I’d have difficulty finding a loco postcard. My resultant, albeit unscientific, research would seem to indicate
that the business of picture postcards is going the way of Saturday mail delivery. There was a time that local picture postcards were easily found in
any drug store. The once ubiquitous five foot carousel racks were commonly found
near the registers.
They are not so easily found these days. On a recent visit
to Walgreens I had to ask a clerk for help.
“Do you carry postcards?”
“I think we do.”
She led me to an aisle but we didn't immediately see them.
“Ah, here there are,” she said, somewhat surprised by her own discovery, "I thought we had them."
On the end cap of the aisle, on a portion of the top shelf,
next to refrigerator magnets, sat a small carousel with a meager offering of
cards.
Judging from this product placement I suspect it won’t long until they vanish from the shelves
completely.