Michael Kuschnia striking a pose, 1977. | Courtesy of Eric Gordon The World Federation of Democratic Youth, a pro-Communist network of student and young people’s organizations based in Prague, published World Student News, a magazine gently trying to promote peaceful coexistence and socialist politics. The magazine carried a pen pal section. A vision of wonderful, colorful new stamps for my collection prompted my decision to submit a pen pal request for correspondents. I was living in New Orleans then as a graduate student at Tulane, but at that moment taking a year off. The magazine reprinted my ad several times, and I suddenly became inundated with letters from strangers in Algeria, Zambia, Poland, China, Cuba, the USSR, India, all over the world. I responded dutifully, but truthfully didn’t feel much connection, and those correspondences quickly faded away.