Have you ever written a fan letter to someone?

In school we wrote to a hockey teams and they sent back posters and flags. The team was the Montreal Canadiens and they had just won the Stanley Cup. I was still on the East Coast - must have been around 1973.

When Princess Diana died, I must have written condolences or something -- I can't remember now -- because a few weeks later I got a letter from St. James' Palace, thanking me for my condolences, and using my name. I couldn't believe they were evidently writing back to every member of the public who must have written or sent flowers! That would be a lot of members of the public! That's nuts. I still have the letter.

The funny thing is, I cannot remember writing to anywhere. The only thing I know I did do was that I signed a book of condolence halfway around the world, that a local mall had set up and hundreds of people were signing, in the days after she died. But I don't know how it is that one of the Royal palaces actually wrote back to me. It was international too, as I was living abroad. Crazy.

I posted on an authors facebook page that I respected and she did reply. I was pretty giddy.

Years ago I found out the girl I was desperately trying to win over had a childhood crush on Randolph Mantooth from Emergency. So I wrote him a letter asking for an autographed picture made out to her with an inscription to her referencing this (can't remember exactly what I asked him to write). A couple months later I received a grainy black and white mass produced photo with a pre-printed replica of his signature on it, no personalized inscription. Apparently in the year 2000, Randolph Mantooth, who's greatest popularity was over two decades behind him, still received too much fan mail to respond with anything personalized. At least I got a response I guess (and no I didn't win the girl over).