Postcards From the Edge...and Other Places

I love postcards.  I have always enjoyed sending them and receiving them.  I apparently inherited this from my maternal grandmother.  When she died back in 1970 I found a few boxes of antique postcards that she had saved over the years.  I admired the hand tinted photographs and drawings, but more than that I cherished the messages on the back.  In the old days, before the internet and cell phones, a traveler might jot off a message simply to let the folks back home know they had arrived safely at their destination.  The addresses have served as clues for me when doing some genealogical research.  Others were from people I've never heard of, perhaps acquaintances or business associates lost to history.
As I started collecting to add to the stash, I began looking for shots of local places or locations with some connection to my life.  They serve as reminders of a time gone by and provide a glimpse of how those who went before us lived.  What baseball cards are to baseball fans, postcards are to history and travel buffs.
I wonder if anyone else still sends postcards?  Actually in this digital age, I fear postcards are going the way of the handwritten letter.
This past weekend I was poking around in an antique store and discovered they had a few boxes of postcards for sale.  The owner had already done the work and categorized them making my job easy.  I found four postcards of old Middletown I wanted, but the prices were too steep so I settled for two of them.  One was a hand tinted picture of a building at Connecticut Valley Hospital.  I bought it because there is a street named after my grandfather on the hospital grounds so there was a connection to my personal history.  After I left the store though I began wondering who would send a postcard from the local insane asylum (not politically correct, I know, but true enough in the age I am referring to)?  What would you write?  "Having a great time. Wish you were here"?  I suspect it was more about showcasing the beautiful facilities we had for the sick in our fair state
than about providing the patients an opportunity to communicate with loved ones.
They say every picture tells a story.  I believe every postcard tells a story of a particular time and place and if you're lucky it might tell you something about yourself as well.