When I started the first Postcard Project in 2022, I expected it to be a one-off thing.

I was wrong.

This year’s Postcard Project begins with Memorial Day and runs through Labor Day, Sept. 1. I anticipate an uptick in the arrival of postcards, but the truth is that these days, I receive postcards year-round from people I don’t know — and each one makes my heart go pitter-patter. Just last week, I received four from Dru Troescher.

Collections of postcards shot on August 31, 2024.

Because some people send postcards so frequently, I feel like I’ve gotten to know them — even if we’ve never met.

In the last few weeks, I received four postcards from Dru Troescher — from Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and Arkansas.

The first was from the Ohio State Capitol Building. Troescher happened to be there on the anniversary of the day President Abraham Lincoln lay in state there for eight hours.

"He then continued on his train trip to Springfield, Illinois, his burial site," Troescher wrote, adding that they were on their way to visit the Capitol building and Lincoln's Presidential Library in Springfield next.

Once there, she found another postcard, but not at the state capitol.

A onetime New Orleans landmark, the Red Store stands alongside the vegetable section of the city’s historic French Market in an undated postcard. The Red Store was demolished in the mid-1930s – only to be rebuilt three and a half decades later.

"The Illinois Capitol did not have a gift shop, so we went to the Illinois State Museum. It was free and very nice — lots about fossils and natural history. We're on our way to Independence, Missouri, to see the Truman Library," Troescher wrote from Springfield.

I did not receive a postcard from Troescher at the Truman Library in Missouri, but she delivered in Indiana, but, once again, not from the Capitol building, which did not have a gift shop.

The intrepid Troescher went to the University of Notre Dame and found a beautiful postcard to send, representing Indiana.

On her way back to Baton Rouge, she stopped at the Clinton Presidential Library in Little Rock and sent a postcard from there.

Mary Ellen Horan sent a postcard from Nevada — filled with facts about the Silver State.

Her thoughtful stops and notes add to the fabric of this project. I've never met Troescher, but I appreciate her dedication to the project.

There are a few people who have, through the years of this project, sent so many postcards or such interesting postcards and messages that I have become friends with them — good friends, in fact. Just yesterday, I had lunch with a friend in New Orleans who is a direct result of the Postcard Project!

Each summer, the goal is to get postcards from every state and as many countries as possible. I encourage you to give it a try. Taking the time to write and mail a postcard on the road adds a different dimension to travel.

Rifling through the bounty of the 2024 Postcard Project, in which we received more than 272 postcards from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and 34 other countries, I can't help but be touched by the sincerity of the messages and amused by the obvious humor and ingenuity of some of the postcards sent in — not to mention being awed by the many vintage postcards people have sent in.

As evidenced by Troescher's effort to find postcards, the near relic from the past can be difficult to find. Last year, a guy named Michael G got tired of looking for them and started making his own. He sent me postcards made of the end of a Kleenex box, the front of a cereal box and a piece of a campaign mailer.

I hope some people this year will follow in Michael G's path and make postcards from unexpected paper and objects.

Make-do postcards from Michael G. in the New Orleans area who makes postcards from recycled paper materials.

A. Kern sent a postcard from Paris, saying, "I am an old, retired French teacher, returning to Paris for another visit."

Carla from Germany wrote a year ago this week, on May 23, 2024: "Today the German Constitution, called Grundgesetz, has its 75th birthday." She goes on to explain that the first sentence of the German Constitution is: "Human dignity is inviolable."

Just to be sure, I looked up "inviolable." It means: never to be broken, infringed or dishonored.

I like that.

Carla went on in her postcard: "Also, the (West) German state was founded today 75 years ago, thanks to USA, France and Great Britain after the horrible Nazi terror and World War II. I think our constitution can avoid another dictatorship and protect the democracy. I think it is one of the best in the world."

Reading back through last year's postcards makes me both grateful and hopeful — for the many people who took the time to send them last year and for the many we hope to receive this year. Who knows where they will come from and what they will say?

The postcard magic continues, and I can't wait.

Jan Risher, The Advocate, 10705 Rieger Road, Baton Rouge, LA 70809.

The 2025 Postcard Project will end Labor Day weekend.