Letters

I love reading letters. The really old ones are the best. The other night, I read one addressed to my father. It was dated January 20, 1976. The letter is from a judge, James Del Rio, who I believe was a childhood friend/acquaintance of my father's. It basically thanks him for serving as a juror, and asks him to encourage friends, family, and neighbors to serve when summoned. Judges in Michigan are elected, so I suspect this fact played a role in the Honorable Mr. Del Rio's taking time to write a former juror. The jury pool is selected from the body of registered voters, yes?

I keep most of my letters in an old shoebox. It's actually a pretty big shoebox, so there are a lot of letters in it. I think the oldest ones go back to seventh grade. Letters from my uncle (they were soooo long!), letters from classmates, letters from penpals. Some are elaborately folded, almost like origami. Others have frayed edges ... obviously the result of being ripped out of a spiral notebook. Still others aren't letters in the truest sense, but simply slips of paper with a girl's name and a telephone number. No, they probably are letters in the truest sense ... why else would they have ended up in the shoebox reserved for special letters?

oh, oh ... flashback: Ninth grade, the day I switched English classes rather late in the semester. I went into the new class, was assigned a seat, and started doing the assignment. Everybody was already working or reading silently. I noticed a girl sitting a few rows over, who was reading a really thick paperback novel (she was done with the assignment). I don't remember what the book was, but I remember thinking it looked like a good book. Something a smart person would read. So as soon as I finished my work (I think I hurried to finish), I started talking to her about the book. Then when the bell rang, I made sure we kept talking about the book as I walked with her to her locker (which wasn't near my locker). I remember she was putting her stuff in the locker, and she was really short. So she had to step up into the locker to reach the top shelf where she was putting her books.

I was running out of stuff to say. You know, the "window" was closing. So I just said, "Can I call you?" When I said that, she was facing the locker, one foot on the bottom ledge, one hand reaching up toward the top shelf. And when she heard my question, the hand froze. Briefly, but long enough for me to be able to tell. And she just sort of shook her head 'yes', before she even turned around. She wore a pony tail; I remember it sort of danced around when she was shaking her head. Crazy ... I remember that vividly. I haven't thought about that day in a long time.

I called her, eventually asked her to be my girlfriend, she said "yes". We talked about books a lot. We were an "item" for the rest of ninth grade, and remained friends for a long time after that. Last I heard, she became a doctor. Anyway, I remember her handwriting was very neat and feminine. But with very bold strokes. I think she used exclamation points more than necessary. Not that that's a bad thing.