Fact or Factoid? Curious or Criminal?

There wasn't just a single letter.

After graduating from college in 1991, I went to Israel and lived on a kibbutz for several months where I participated in an "Ulpan" – a Hebrew language and cultural education program. The students in the ulpan hailed from all over the world – France, England, New Zealand, South Africa and, of course, several from the US of A.

Now, keep in mind that those were the days before the Internet and email and instant messaging via Facebook. Those were also the days when unlimited long distance and international calling didn't exist and it was crazy expensive to make international calls. So we (gasp!) wrote letters.

At that time, which, truth be told, wasn't that long ago, air mail letters could be written on separate sheets of incredibly lightweight paper sometimes referred to as "onion skin" or they could be written on single sheets that were folded and sealed with tabs.

My Dad wrote to me ... gosh ... virtually every day, I'd say. A prolific writer and avid storyteller himself with unintelligible longhand, at some point Dad started writing on the outsides of the tabs, eager not to have me miss a single detail of what was going on "across the pond."

If memory serves, after watching some CNN newscasts, Dad started putting little "quizzes" in the space afforded by the tabs used to seal the letter closed. The brain-teasers, such as they were, all began with the same words, "Fact or Factoid?" I really enjoyed them.

Unbeknownst to me, other ulpan students were enjoying them too...

You see, in an effort to maintain as cohesive a group as possible, all the ulpan students lived together in two or three buildings. Because we all roomed with each other, our mail was bundled together, too. Typically, one person would pick it all up from the post box and then distribute it to the lucky recipients.

Now, in the US, there are all sorts of laws regarding opening someone else's mail. But from what I can gather it is not illegal to read someone else's open mail. Then again, I wasn't in the US, but old habits die hard...

So you can imagine how surprised I was when, one day, one of my classmates – a strapping guy from New Zealand – came up to me, cocked his head, gave me a look and said, "So Daphne, what's with this 'Fact or Factoid?'"

I didn't know whether to be vexed that he was reading my mail or impressed that he could decipher my Dad's writing.

This was written for the BFF Inspiration #117 - The Letter.