Fan Mail

I’m a big sucker for compliments but when they are in writing and are about my writing – I’m pretty much over the moon.  So, yesterday, when an honest-to-goodness-card-complete-with-poem came, I was pretty much gobsmacked.  To say nothing of it including a photograph of one of my favorite memories.

First of all, I had to think a little bit when I saw the return address.  Roger Boyle from Georgia.  It took a few beats but then I got it.  Fifteen or twenty years ago, Roger was the man who drove the mail van into Oysterville every day.  Twice.   In the morning to deliver and in the afternoon to pick up.  He courted Nancy Holden, our south-a-half-mile neighbor and ten years ago or so they ran off in the sunset together.  Or something like that.

Wow!

Roger is a handsome man and, demented though she might have been, my mother zeroed right in on him at her 95^th birthday party in 2006.  She always had an eye for the good-looking guys and, I have to say, they responded in kind!  Roger took her for a dance around the room while my cousin Cheryl played the piano.  Mom’s legs weren’t quite up to it, so Roger had her put her feet right on top of his and away they went!

Roger’s fan mail included a copy of that infamous dance plus the best (and only) personalized poem I’ve ever received, fan mail or otherwise:

‘THE DANCE’
We wait for the Observer,
Wherever we might roam;
We like to know what’s going on,
In the place we once called home:
I like to read your column,
Because you write so well;
I so enjoy the history,
And the stories that you tell;
When I read the column,
Or the blog of you and Nyel,
It triggers a fond memory,
And I just stop and smile;
It happened back some time ago,
when I got the chance;
To meet a special lady,
And she granted me a dance.

Thanks, Roger!  I wish you and Nancy would come visiting sometime!  We miss you both.  Plus, I sure would love it if you’d dance around the living room with me!