Why this trucker sends 30 postcards a month and thinks you should too
Regular postcards from Shawn White help brighten the day of two CBC Radio hosts
By Now or Never host Trevor Dineen
The last time I checked my mailbox at home, this is what I found:
- A hydro bill.
- A large collection of flyers.
- A pamphlet for some company that paints houses.
- A blue rubber band.
Not exactly riveting content. And to be honest, it never really is.
But the last time I checked my mailbox at work (and by mailbox, I mean the corner of my cluttered desk next to my oatmeal container) there was a lovely postcard sitting there waiting for me.
The front of it had a picture of a cricket riding on a snail (adorable) and on the back there was some familiar penmanship that I've grown to know quite well.
It said:
"Trevor and Ify,
This card made me think of Ify riding around on the back of Trevor,
because he was "not the winner" of your competition.
It is cold and snowing in B.C. Brrrrrrrrr.
Shawn."
First off... I hate not being the winner. It's the worst.
Secondly... The 'Shawn' in the postcard is Shawn White.
Who is Shawn White?
To be clear, I've never met Shawn White. I've never seen a photo of him or even heard his voice but I could easily pick out his handwriting in a lineup. That's because he's been sending Ify and I postcards for many months. It may actually be one of our favourite things (minus, you know, those days where people bring cake to work).
He's sent us postcards from Whitehorse, Yukon, Fraser Canyon, B.C, California, Winnipeg and Berg Lake, B.C. All with nice little notes and tiny smiley faces drawn on them.
It got to the point where if I didn't get a postcard from Shawn for a few weeks, I would start feeling concerned for him.
So this week, we finally decided to pull back the curtain and meet the person behind the postcards and it turns out... He's awful.
Just kidding!
He's such a great guy!
We called him randomly one afternoon and when he answered, we found out he was in a bit of pickle (some would say quandary, I prefer pickle). You see, his truck had just broken down and he was stranded on the side of the highway, near Jasper, B.C, just waiting for help.
Can you guess what he was doing while he was waiting?
He was writing a postcard.
Turns out, Shawn is a long haul truck driver who just loves handwritten messages. He has four pen pals around the world and sends about 20-30 postcards a month to different people that he knows.
Am I jealous that I'm not the only one he sends postcards to? That's not important.
What is important is why he does it.
"I just find Facebook and email to be so impersonal and fast paced," he says with a shy laugh over the phone. "I'm just a nostalgic romantic, you know like in the olden days, writing letters and stuff. And it's a little more dramatic because no one really does it that much anymore."
The more we talked, the more you could tell it didn't matter if he was sending or receiving the letters... They just bring him so much joy.
"I could never stop doing it now. I'm hooked. It doesn't cost much money or time and it just makes people feel happy. Plus, it's nice to come home to a happy mailbox after being on the road for so long."
After thanking him for all of his postcards, we said goodbye and hung up the phone.
It's kind of nice knowing there's someone out there, spreading joy, one postcard at a time. It makes me even more excited to get the next one he sends.
So as I came home that day and looked at my sad, sad mailbox, I was reminded of something important that I had completely forgotten...
I hadn't paid my hydro bill.
This segment originally aired in February 2020.