I signed up on the site, then it says that the page is no longer available...

Music WOman

Actually when cscm sent me the article's address this morning, I didn't need
to sign up to see it. Later, when he posted to the list he wrote that you had
to sign up. I was a bit muddled....

if you just try to go directly to the article, does it work for you?


Rustypuff


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I had the same problem, but used their little "search" box to search on the
word "letterbox" - the article popped right up.

Judi
----- Original Message -----
From:
To:
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: [LbNA] RI: publicity redux


> I signed up on the site, then it says that the page is no longer
available...
>
> Music WOman
>

From: mindizney@aol.com
To: letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, May 06, 2003 2:58 PM
Subject: Re: [LbNA] RI: publicity redux


I signed up on the site, then it says that the page is no longer available...
Well, then, we'll just have to cut it out of the paper and hang it on the bulletin board. I'm sure the reason you have to sign up is so that they can try to sell you a subscription to the paper, which is usually delivered right to your neighbor's roof or under your car, if at all. But let's not rag on the local rag right now.

Letterboxing may be the ultimate game of hide and seek
On the Tupperware trail

05/06/2003

BY BRYAN ROURKE
Journal Staff Writer


GLOCESTER -- The empty parking lot must mean something. Danger abounds. Stay away.

But Christopher Martin and Kim Calcagno approach.

Their car pulls into the Durfee Hill Management Area. They step out and fearlessly face the forest.

It's quiet, the calm before the kill.

Yes, they're here to hunt. And judging by their attire and demeanor, they've got more than mushrooms on their minds.

The 36-year-old Providence man holds a map -- not the kind with roads, but clues, as though looking for buried treasure. Take 10 steps from the stump; turn right at the rock; that sort of thing.

And the 31-year-old Holbrook, Mass., woman is the keeper of the compass.

Into the woods they walk, without weapons, apparently prepared to pounce on their prey with bare hands, rip off its stay-fresh top and pull out its plastic innards.

They're here to hunt Tupperware.

That's right. It's out there, hiding and living in the wild, feeding off who knows what -- leftovers most likely.

Or perhaps it's not eating at all, but storing food for later.

So call in your pets and small children. We're going after it. We're tracking its scent, assuming its seal has been broken.

If not, that's fine. Martin and Calcagno say they've got all they need for their pacifist brand of hunting, which they call letterboxing.

It's part hiking, part orienteering, part stamping and scavenger hunting. Here's how it works: Letterboxers create their own signature stamp and carry around notebooks. A person hides a notebook and a stamp in a waterproof container -- most often Tupperware -- and others try to find it by following clues found on the world's official and communal letterboxing Web site: www.letterboxing.org, which lists 4,648 letterboxes in 50 states and eight countries.

When a letterbox is discovered, its finder stamps and signs the notebook inside and stamps his own notebook with the letterbox's stamp.

Wanda and Pete Miner of Charlestown are the reigning American letterboxing champions, finding 2,780 so far. They got started as so many letterboxers do, hiking. They're walking in the woods anyway. Why not, they thought, add intrigue to their outings?

"At first, I was not impressed," Wanda Miner says. "Why would I want to go and look for a box? Now here I am in love with the hobby."

The goal is to get out. See and appreciate nature. In return, receive a reward.

"It's like someone has given me a gift," Wanda Miner says. "They're giving me a special stamp, or leading me to a special place."

Letterboxing started in 1854. An Englishman put his calling card in a bottle, hid it outdoors and others found it. For more than a century the activity operated in obscurity, especially in the United States. Then, in 1998, Smithsonian Magazine published an article about it.

Letterboxing burgeoned. Jay Drew is partly to blame.

The former Newport man, now living in East Lyme, Conn., his wife Margaret and their four children, have hidden more letterboxes than any other Americans: more than 350.

"There's something sneaky and fun about it," Drew says. "You have a gleam in your eye wondering if someone will find it."

In most instances finding a box isn't difficult. Follow the directions. That's all it takes.

But in some cases, it's not so simple. With about 10 percent of letterboxes, the clues are cryptic.

With some, you must solve riddles, break codes or, even, translate Polish. That would be the appropriately named Polish Box in Pulaski Memorial State Park in Burrillville.

"That was evil," Calcagno says.

Fortunately, Martin works with a man who knows Polish. Unfortunately, the box still couldn't be found, even after three outings.

As it turns out, someone stole it, or, as letterboxers say, it went missing.

"That's why you want to be low-key about people seeing you," Martin says. "You don't know what other people's disposition is."

Not everyone understands, appreciates and supports letterboxing. In fact, some public park officials are opposed to it.

"They consider it littering," Martin says.

Environment not disturbed

Letterboxers, of course, disagree. You can't see the boxes; they're hidden. But they're not buried because that would disturb the environment.

"It's very important we leave no trace on the environment," Calcagno says. "We tell everyone about boxing, but don't want them to notice us while we do it."

That explains much. Calcagno is a naturalist at the Massachusetts Audubon Society's Moose Hill Wildlife Sanctuary in Sharon. She didn't know about letterboxing until Martin told her about it more than a year ago. And she didn't know there were four letterboxes hidden where she works.

But in hindsight, Calcagno says, it figures.

"There are four distinct places in the sanctuary where people visit."

As Martin and Calcagno walk into the woods, they enter a world of staggering beauty, with a budding leaf canopy, a symphony of birds, frogs and wind, and a relentless waterfall crashing on rocks. They stay on the trail. This minimizes their impact on the environment. And they pick up litter along the way.

Eventually, clues pull them from the path. But roughing it, Martin and Calcagno are not. There's a code among letterboxers. Don't endanger each other or the environment.

But still, there are mishaps. There are letterboxes hidden in the dead of winter, that spring reveals in patches of pricker bushes and poison ivy.

"I know what poison ivy looks like," Martin says. "I just don't notice it when I'm walking."

Waist deep in mud

There was a Virginia letterboxer known only as Psycho Mommy who one spring, after the winter thaw, walked into waist-deep mud and had to be pulled out by firefighters.

This is simpler. Martin and Calcagno walk along a brook, come to a waterfall and turn toward a stone wall, the preferred letterbox hiding place.

"In New England it's easy because we have so many stone walls," Calcagno says. "Other places you go, you find a suspicious collection of stones."

There's the letterbox, between the rocks, a hibernating full-grown Tupperware container.

They open it. A note inside says "this is not trash." It's meant for non-letterboxers. Martin and Calcagno stamp the notebook inside the letterbox, read the messages left by others and add some of their own.

And off they go to look for other letterboxes, two in particular, one called Laurel and the other Hardy. On their way, they come upon another couple, a woman looking up into the trees and a man looking down at a piece of paper.

It's Wanda and Pete Miner.

"If you see people in the woods and they have a piece of paper and they appear to be lost," Martin says. "They're probably letterboxers."


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

People might also try going to www.projo.com, clicking on "Your
Life," and looking through the list of articles for the one about
letterboxing.

Good luck!

CSCM

I found it by entering "letterbox" in their search box [after I had
signed in].
Nice article.
Kim
Cavy Lovers



--- In letterbox-usa@yahoogroups.com, "cscm88" wrote:
> People might also try going to www.projo.com, clicking on "Your
> Life," and looking through the list of articles for the one about
> letterboxing.
>
> Good luck!
>
> CSCM

In a message dated 5/6/2003 3:39:52 PM Eastern Standard Time,
rid25751@ride.ri.net writes:


> Well, then, we'll just have to cut it out of the paper and hang it on the
> bulletin board. I'm sure the reason you have to sign up is so that they can
> try to sell you a subscription to the paper, which is usually delivered
> right to your neighbor's roof or under your car, if at all. But let's not
> rag on the local rag right now.
>

Thanks :-) BTW.... tonight after I got home from school, it appeared on the
site :-)

I don't think they deliver to my neck of the woods! At least the address I
put in the subscription (CT).... I won't tell my RI address!

Music Woman


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

I just bought the newspaper for 50 cents. Nice article. The author
makes it sound like letterboxing is a competition with a National
championship LOL. Very nice article and pictures.

moostone_baby