By By MARCIA STEFFENS / Niles Daily Star
EDWARDSBURG – When the postlady delivered a letter recently that was written by a Marine to his friend, her comment was "talk about snail mail."
The letter was postmarked July 22, 1981, sent from Camp Lejuene, N.C.
David Kulwicki's brother-in-law, Darryl Reynolds, called him and said he a letter had been delivered for him to an old address on May Street in Edwardsburg.
What a surprise to find an almost 27-year-old letter from his former Marine buddy.
The letter was from Dennis Wayne Petefish. Too bad Kulwicki, 49, never went to the party he was invited to – to celebrate Petefish getting out of the service.
"I never knew about it,' Kulwicki said.
The letter appeared to have been opened and had been taped shut.
"Who knows what happened to it," he said.
Petefish, who is presently an assistant police chief, lives in Stanley, Va.
In the letter, Petefish said it was "six months, seven days," before he gets out.
The two have talked just a few times in the past 27 years.
In the letter, Petefish had talked about falling in love with a college student.
Calling him this week, after finding him on the Internet, Kulwicki asked about that woman and learned she wasn't the woman his friend had married.
Kulwicki, whose mother still lives in Edwardsburg, said he went to Texas then Virginia and into construction after the service and then drove truck.
The stamp on the letter – it was 18 cents, but they didn't ask for postage due.