Pen pals meet for first time after writing to each other for 42 years

letter writing has been put on the back burner for some people, but not for all people. Inside Edition reports that two people have been writing letters to each other for 42 years. They finally met on April 11.

George Ghossen is now 56. He was 14 when he became Lori Gertz's pen pal. She is now 54 and was 12 when she and George began writing letters to each other. George thought it was about time that he met Lori in person.

So, he decided to leave East Islip, New York and go to San Diego to meet her.

How they became pen pals

George and Lori became Pen Pals through a chain letter. They were supposed to write to six people in the hopes of getting hundreds back. Lori said she received only one and that one was from George.

For the next 42 years, they wrote at least one letter a month. They shared that they have every letter they received from the very first one. They got to know each other through their letters by keeping the other one up to date about special things in their lives when they were in high school, college and after they became adults.

Why they waited so long to meet

Lori blamed it on George that they hadn't met before. She told Inside Edition that she was curious and wanted to meet sooner, but George is really superstitious. He liked the way things were going, and he thought perhaps it would be bad luck for them to meet.

It is interesting that George is the one who made the trip in spite of his superstition. They both were nervous, but that all changed once they were in each other's company. They reminisced over the letters they had written over four decades.

During the visit

During George's visit, he met Lori's husband and their two children. Lori's husband told George that meeting him was like meeting a long-lost family member.

Because people in Lori's community knew about her story, she and George were honored at the local high school.

The pen pals shared about the thrills of having received letters from each other over the years. They talked about the value of holding letters in their hands as opposed to reading an e-mail or text message. They concluded they established and maintained their friendship the old-fashioned way through letter writing.

During all those years, the two never considered anything other than friendship. They never thought of their letter writing as a romantic relationship. They think of themselves as family. This is ideal for George because he has no living relatives.