Postcard arrives 121 years late544
9/9/2024 (#15 this year)
You get all of your tests back today. Are you excited? You usually get the tests back overa week or so, but you get them all at once1 this year. You are very lucky. Don’t worry.
I’m sure you did really well and that you have got 100 points on every test. Were yourtests easy? Or difficult? Or somewhere in between? Did you go out to celebrate2 theend of the tests over the weekend? I was talking to some students that were planningto go to Alice Buffet. That seems like a very good idea. I love Alice Buffet. They have a
lot of food and you can eat so much cake and ice cream! The only problem is the time
limit is about 80 minutes and that makes my wife panic. Haha.
8 differences!

Last week’s answer

Something you didn’t know about postcards
1. The world’s first picture postcard was sent in 1840, in London. Theodore Hook sent
the postcard to himself. He hand painted the picture himself. This postcard wasrecently sold for $47,000.
2. Early postcards had a picture on one side and space for the name and address onthe back. The sender had to write a message over the picture. The split backpostcards with space for a message that we use today were invented in 1907.
3. 1898 to 1918 is known as the Golden Age of Postcards because so many were sent.
4. Many people collect postcards. Collecting postcards is called deltiology.
5. The first real photo postcard was in 1900.

Last week, a postcard arrived at a bank in Swansea, UK. It was addressed toMiss Lydia Davis and it is a Christmas-themed3 postcard. There is nothing
strange about receiving a postcard. The strange thing is that this postcard wasposted in 1903! Many people complain4 that the post office service5 in the UK(the Royal Mail) is too slow, but this is probably the slowest postcard ever. The
postcard was sent by a boy called Ewart to his sister Lydia. Ewart had gone tohis grandfather’s house and he sent the postcard back to his sister who was athome. They lived above their parent’s tailors6 shop, which is now the bank thatthe postcard arrived at. So, what happened? The Royal Mail say that theyalways deliver every letter, but they don’t know what happened. Wherever thepostcard was, when the Royal Mail found it, they delivered it, even though thestamp was too old. When the postcard arrived, the people in the bank looked
for Lydia and Ewart, but they had both passed away7. Ewart was 13 at the time,
so he would be 134 years old now. However, they did manage to find therelatives8 of Ewart and Lydia. Ewart’s grandson, who is 65, and Lydia’s greatgreat granddaughter9, who is 47, came to the bank to collect the postcard.

1.all at once 一度に 2.celebrate 祝う 3.theme テーマ 4.complain 文句を言う 5.service
局 6.tailor 仕立てる 7.pass away 亡くなる 8.relative 親戚 9.great-great granddaughter
そうそう孫An Unusual Job

World record
I wrote this week’s news about postcards, so let’s look at a postcard world record.
Guinness World Records says that the record for the most postcards is held by Michael
Shefers in Germany and he has 16,000 postcards. However, a 92 year old man recently
donated1 his postcard collection to amuseum and he had over 300,000
postcards. He started collecting hiscards during World War 2 and he

Haunted House Actor
Have you ever been in a haunted house3? When I was a child, I thought they
were terrifying4, but they all used dolls and robots. They weren’t very
realistic5 and I wouldn’t find them scary now. However, these days, a lot of
haunted houses use real people. That is much scarier because they canchange and adapt6 depending on your reaction. Also, knowing they are real
is really scary. Well, if you are looking for a job and you love the sound ofpeople screaming7, you could be a haunted house actor. Most haunted
house actors are part time and are probably university students, but you cando it for a long time, if you want to. These people are sometimes actors whoare trying to earn money between acting gigs8, but anyone can do it. You doneed to be able to stay in character. Haunted house actors have to be very
careful of their voices because they scream a lot while they are in character.
They also need to drink water because they will be in a costume and inside
the haunted house will be hot as well. What do you think? Is it a job you
would like to try?

never stopped. They filled many of the rooms in hishouse. He had a lot but he always kept them in orderand organized2 them by theme, country, date, anddesign. His name is Donald Brown and the museum
he gave them to are very happy because he has manyold postcards as well.
寄付する 2.organize 整理する 3.haunted house お化け屋敷“Don’t let yesterday take up too much 1.donate
4.terrifying 恐ろしい 5.realistic 現実的 6.adapt 適応する 7.scream 叫ぶ
8.acting gig 演技の仕事of today.”— Will Rogers