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Blog 6 February

Blog 5 February

Recently, I received this letter:

Dear Ms. Mickle,

Hi, I am Alexandria. I loved your book Barbaro. It is sad that he died last year; he was so close to recovery. I love animals. I have one dog, two birds, one bunny, and one fish. One of my bunnies died last year as well. I am writing to you because in my class we read a book called Dear Mr. Henshaw. We had to pick our favorite author, and mine is you.

BARBARO was my favorite book of yours. One main reason is that it is the only one I have read of yours. I loved the story about him. If you write another book what would it be?

I think it would be cool if you wrote me back. So could you write me back? It would be awesome if I had a letter from a famous author.

Your #1 Fan,

Alexandria.

Well, I ain’t that famous, Alexandria, but if I can help kids of all ages experience the joy of reading, count me as YOUR fan.

Alexandria and I have had a great time exchanging e-mails. I hope her teacher gives her an A+.

Jim, A Recent Blog reader sent us this,

Hi Shelley,

Yes, I really enjoyed the sandwiched story on your last blog. We are retired (some would say either retreaded or retarded), also animal lovers but not horse people per se. Showed dogs for 35 years, so who knows what that qualifies us as?!? Still have 2 weimaramers who only occasionally drive us crazy! We have found that living in FL Is the perfect solution to being sandwiched, as long as the rest of the family doesn’t follow us to FL. Our parents are long since dead, but now there are kids, grandkids and great grandkids to contend with. Enjoy your blogs and was totally swept up in the Barbaro episode, culminating in his untimely death. What a champion he was and example for us all to aspire to.

Jim.

Now, as for the Valentine Love Letters, I promised…..

In all my “Memory Mashes,” I admit parts are fictionalized to protect the innocent, the shy and those who might get their noses out of joint. Furthermore, all my stories are a blend of truth, imagination, and the way we wish things were.

Recently, a number of friends asked me to write love notes for them. Now, I think this makes all the sense in the world. Didn’t Cyrano de Bergerac-- that fellow in the play-- write endearments and pretend another guy had written them? The fact that I make my living with words should qualify me—at least I ought to know what I’m doing after five decades as a wordsmith. The trouble is, that play “Cyrano DeBergerac” made a fat mistake. Here was one man writing for another man to Roxanne, and really it’s only a woman who knows what another woman wants. So now I’m in the same hot water.

For, my friends expect me to write perfect valentines to their husbands. And that means that, as a woman, I’ll have to come up with the words a man will readily understand as an expression of adoration and bottomless affection.

Furthermore, most of my friends have been married a long while, which means their husbands are meat-and-potatoes guys. They aren’t likely to be impressed by a bunch of spark-ly words.

The first valentine I’m trying out is for my friend Jeanine who runs a cleaning company with her husband, Joe. (It’s a really good cleaners too. They can even get lint off a black sweater.) So here’s what I came up with: “Dear Joe, you are the hole in the sock I stick my toe through. You are the button I don’t want to lose. P.S. there are chips and beer behind your Naugahyde rocker.”

Now my next friend, Pat, offered more of a challenge. Her husband, Ron, is a dentist. He’s real meticulous and pays a lot of attention to overbites and hygiene. So I fashioned a valentine like this: “Dear Ron, you are the sparkle in my gold tooth. In other words, as of today you worth almost nine dollars an ounce and your value is rising. Furthermore, I don’t expect you to be knocked out of my life easily. P.S. chips and beer and mouthwash are in the hammock.”

Now, I was only hoping these early valentines were a warm-up and that I might hit my stride with Lucy, whose husband is a delivery truck driver and NASCAR fan. At first, I was playing around with the idea of a steering wheel, deliveries on time, megawatt horsepower and a shiny exterior. But my love for short words got in the way.

“Dear Tom, You are the gas in my tank. You are the spark plug under my hood. And when I hear you coming, I know you’re gonna lighten my load-- or else, bring me something I’ve won on E-bay. P.S. I love what you do, especially when you scratch off in the driveway. P.S. there’s beer and chips in the garage.”

Now, I’m not sure I’ll advance to writing greeting cards. But if none of my friends get divorced after Valentine’s, I’ll consider offering my services to Cyrano De Bergerac.