Visiting the past in old postcards

You can visit the past in old postcards. The present is a little trickier since smartphones and social media have edged out postcards.

You can find postcards of Disneyland on eBay – just not at Disneyland.

My 3-year-old niece collects postcards. Do you know how hard it is to find a postcard these days? Well, let me tell you.

We went to Disneyland last year. Since my niece is very much into Disney and often flounces around the house dressed as Elsa, I scoured Main Street, Frontierland, Tom Sawyer’s Island, you name it and couldn’t find a single postcard. Finally, a cast member – who wanted so badly to be helpful – conferred with another cast member and directed me with such optimism to a little shop in Fantasyland filled with everything a wannabe princess could need – except a postcard.

A few years ago, I went to China, the land where tacky souvenirs are made. I found scorpions on a stick, pearls, silk dressing robes, Chinese candy, magnets, playing cards, vases, fans and plenty of figurines. Postcards were scarce until we went to the Silk Market (more of a flea market than piles of rippling silk) in Beijing, where I wandered the stalls while a colleague was measured for a custom-made silk smoking jacket. I stumbled across a stack of postcards and bartered them down in price (I love China). Then, EVERYONE in my group wanted to know where I found postcards. See, there’s still a market for them!

This postcard shows what I imagine downtown San Antonio looked like during my grandmother’s youth, when she briefly lived there.

Postcards used to be much more common. In fact, if you scour eBay, you’ll find snapshots of towns in past decades. They’re even helpfully categorized by state and town. It’s neat to see city streets through our grandparents’ eyes.