From the time I was a small child, I was taught to write thank you notes for kindnesses, memorize others’ birthdays and anniversaries, honor the dead, be organized and tidy and evolve into a social creature that takes the time to remember. I think I received my first box of stationery from my mother when I was five. I was reading by three, writing certainly by five, and my mother did take the time to teach me how to write a thank you note. I am still in possession of a few sheets of paper and the lined envelopes my brother’s then girlfriend gave me for my seventeenth birthday.
