Another summer, another massive effort spent cleaning out a long-forgotten corner of my house, another complete and total derailment when I stumbled across a box of old letters.

The last time, it was a box that belonged to my uncle, and it contained letters to him from his brothers and mother, my grandmother, that I’d never met.

This time, it was a box of my dad’s letters, dating from the early 1960s, and the bunch I’ve delved into were mostly from the summer after his freshman year of college, and were from an assortment of friends and family members.

Some of the names are a mystery, others I only know from stories told by my dad, and still others are names I’ve only heard about, but wished I had gotten the chance to know.

It’s interesting to me that I’ve stumbled across these particular letters right as A is about to experience his last summer at home before going to college.

I have my own stack of letters written to me by friend from my first year in college, so I have the 1960s, the 1990s, and now, the 2020s, to compare.

Of course, the kids these days haven’t written an actual letter any time in their lives, other than maybe as an assignment in grade school.

A recently had to dust off that skill to write thank you notes for graduation gifts, but other than that, I don’t think he’s put pen to paper to communicate on any regular basis.

I wonder if, in 30 years, they will look at social media posts the same way I’m pouring over these letters.

In my case, I download my favorite social media data monthly to a word document. The last time I considered printing it, it was several thousand pages.

If they have the technology to decode it, at some time, it might prove interesting to someone.

One of the letter writers from the 1960s references lazy summer days spent at Hauto. That seems to be the place that “the crowd” hung out. (The slang alone makes these letters an absolute joy to read.) Not so different from my days spent at the Bungalow, or A’s days spent at another local lake. Granted, the two of us were working as lifeguards, but still, water has always been a fundamental part of summer around here.

Another 1960s letter references a shopping trip to buy “dry goods.”

I had to look that one up, or read ahead a few letters, when the writer referenced all the purchases she’d made, and was sewing into new clothes for her upcoming first year in college.

Quite a far cry from A, who is mostly overwhelmed by the fact that for the first time since preschool, he won’t have to wear a uniform to school. While he’s still planning to wear his beloved button-down shirts, I have a feeling that won’t last once all of the mom-ironed ones have been worn, provided they survive packing and unpacking.

My dad, the recipient of these letters, was out on the West Coast at this time, fighting fires with a crew in Oregon.

As I’ve been flipping through envelopes, I’ve tracked at least three different addresses for various camps that he was stationed at. I also found a letter from my grandmother expressing a great deal of concern about my dad’s apparent automobile troubles.

I’m trying to imagine myself, next summer, with A on the other side of the continent, not being able to pinpoint his exact longitude and latitude, (thank you Life 360) and having to wonder if he was broken down by the side of the road somewhere between several known locations.

I’m not sure I’ll be able to match my grandmother’s fortitude, if that’s the path A takes.

A actually applied for a pre-orientation program that will have him trekking through the wilderness in New England for a full week before he has to report to campus.

While he was initially excited about it, ready to charge off to school as soon as possible, the arrival of more specific details, or rather the specific lack of details concerning running water and facilities, has him thinking maybe this wasn’t the best idea.

I think some of these old letters will serve to remind him of the stock he’s made of and re-ignite his excitement to “rough it.” As for me, I’m going to do my best to drop him off, drive away, and wait anxiously for his phone call at the end of the week. Solidarity in roughing it, although I have no intention of going without a daily shower.

Speaking of phone calls, the old letters make various mentions of “it being too expensive to call,” both from friends and family. Phone calls are not that popular nowadays either, text being the much preferred form of communication.

While I hope that I can match up some of the dates on letters in my uncle’s box with letters in my dad’s box, and get both sides of some stories, I also have the benefit of knowing how the stories in many of those letters turned out already.

One of the things that is always prevalent in my grandmother’s letters is a hope that her son will remember his upbringing. I’m not sure if she meant it that way, but it comes across as being very certain that she had provided her son with a strong foundation, and that she expected to live up to the expectations that she had for him. Knowing my dad, I can say that he did.

I can’t say that I have quite the confidence in my parenting abilities, and goodness knows, the foundation has been a little shaky around these parts without Steve around to keep shoring it up, but I know that I have to have a small amount of the faith that my grandmother did, as I know A has much of the same confidence that my father did.

I also hope that fifty or sixty years from now, my memories will become treasured family heirlooms in whatever form they survive.

Liz Pinkey’s column appears on Saturdays in the Times News.