Postcard Friendship Friday - Fast Mail

This is a romatic comic postcard with some clever word play. "Mail" refers both to postal mail and the male in the picture. Fast doesn't just refer to speed--the word has a special meaning when applied to a male (promiscuous or flouting conventional sexual standards).

To really understand this card, you need to know some things about railroad trains. "Fast mail" refers to a fast mail train which would have had Railway Post Office (RPO) cars for sorting mail in transit. Trains could be flagged down (signaled to stop) to give instructions to the engineer or to pick up passengers. Apparently sometimes the fast mail trains were used exsclusively for mail, but at other times there were trains named "fast mail" that also carried passenger cars.

The National Postal Museum has an online exhibit with information on railway mail service and models of the trains and equipment used.

Postcard Friendship Friday