Yes, most of us have graduated from snail mail to email. But when it comes to sending birthday and anniversary greetings, I may be going backwards.

My popup card hobby has taken off to the point where I can now produce a nice looking card in less than 30 minutes. Not long ago it took me at least an hour to produce a popup card. In mass production, once I no longer have to think about the design, and my pictures are printed out, I can produce a finished popup card every 10 to 15  minutes.

Today I decided that I would mass-produce a favorite popup card – Winnie the Pooh flying his kite. In Henry Ford style, I printed out the 15 glossy photo papers with background pictures for the five cards I will mail this afternoon. I printed out the several pictures of Winnie the Pooh, and of his kite. I cut out the pictures, folded the cards, glued and taped the pictures to the plastic strips, checked them out for appearance and function, printed envelopes for the five birthday people on my calendar this week, and I applied the $1.06 postage to each envelope. Can you visualize two Forever stamps, and  14 one-cent stamps, covering almost half the envelope? I’ve got to get more 10-cent stamps.

Will I continue to make popup cards for the all people on my birthday list? Probably not for all of them. For those who are most important in my life, I hope I can continue to snail mail my cards.

Perhaps the technology will one day be there to send 3D popup cards via email. Then I wonder what I will use snail mail for. Perhaps only to send to Aunt Lucile, who eschews the computer, and who was the only recipient of my snail mail for the past 15 years.

God bless you, Lucile – and you, too, my readers.

Mr. Ebsen may be contacted at robertebsen@hotmail.com