Not the funnest of mail days

I got a bit of a surprise on Thursday when I went out to the mailbox, and found one of my old TTM SASE's sitting in there.

Since I haven't sent out a request in like four years, I thought that this might be one of those instances that I've read about where someone receives a signed item back after having written it off years earlier. This would not be one of those instances.

Some of the folks that are unfortunate enough to have been coming around here for a while, might recall that I use to do a "TTM Triumph" series. The posts weren't great, but they did gave me something to talk about there for a bit, so they were good for me in that regard. I stopped doing the posts around the time that I stopped sending out requests. My venture into the world of TTM's didn't last too long, and not because I stopped enjoying the getting of autographs, no, the letters; that's what did me in. 

For better or worse, I'm a rambler. I do it in blog posts. I probably do it when talking. And I do it when writing letters too! Try as I have, it's a habit that I just can't seem to break. If I didn't have any blogs to keep up with, I could've probably kept sending out requests, but writing multiple page letters for each of my requests (if you think my posts are bad, just imagine being one of the poor souls who's received one of my letters) while also trying to keep this blog updated on a semi-regular basis, was just too much for me. 

While still actively sending out requests I kept track of what I sent to who, and when; but have long since recycled those records. And not being in possession of the greatest of memories, I can't remember every single person that didn't respond to my requests. The North Houston postmark didn't help narrow things down either. However...

... after pulling out this note first, I had a pretty good idea who this request had been to.

At some point in the distant past, I had gotten a bunch of tiny envelopes for free. I think that they might've originally been for wedding invitations, or possible baby shower invites. Either way, I found that they were the perfect size to use for a card when doing TTM's. They seemed to give them just a little bit more protection while on their journey. Opening the envelope, my suspicions as to this was from were concerned.

Another one of these was in the little envelope as well.

I remember reading of Bill's passing, but after looking again, had forgotten that it was just a little over a month ago.

As mentioned already, I don't recall exactly when I sent this, but it had to have been at least four years ago. I had been trying to get as many cards signed as I could from the 1989-90 Hoops set at the time (a project long since abandoned), and remember seeing that a lot of people were having success with Coach Fitch. I figured that he would be an automatic success, but obviously I was wrong.

I of course have no way of knowing why my attempt failed, but wouldn't be surprised if it was just a matter of a bunch of other people seeing the same thing that I saw, and then inundating him with requests. I would imagine that that happens on fairly regular basis. I also have no trouble imagining how overwhelming it can be for the requestee when this does happen.

So, yeah, not the greatest of mail days. It's actually kind of sucky. Though, probably not anywhere near as sucky as it is for the family who appear to be going through all of his old mail and returning cards to those that sent them. That certainly isn't something that I would want to task myself with. 

And for the record, I do appreciate their gesture, I just wish I could've told them not to bother with my card.