Dear Sir or Madam

I lived in Kalamazoo, Michigan, for not quite a year, during which time I was mostly broke and unemployed. It was 1980, the economy was in the toilet, jobs were scarce, and there wasn’t a big demand for someone with a master’s degree in music theory.

One day it occurred to me that Kalamazoo had a symphony orchestra. I typed them a letter that was – well, let’s say – whimsical. Serious inquiries hadn’t done me any good with other local employers, so I thought maybe something bright and engaging and humorous might pique their interest.

I signed it and sealed it and put a stamp on it. I intended to mail it the next day when I went out for the morning newspaper.

I woke up the next day with a sore throat, so I didn’t go out, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought that it was a good thing I hadn’t mailed that letter. I was about to drop it in the trash, but I thought I’d try to save the stamp. I had never tried it, but I had heard you could loosen the glue by freezing it, so I put the letter in the freezer.

As the day went on, I got sicker – runny nose, headache. I had heard about some flu that was going around, the Bangkok flu they called it, and people were dying from it.

I lay in bed half asleep, thinking, What if that’s what I have? And what if I die from it? And what will my family think when they come to deal with my things and find a letter to the Kalamazoo Symphony in my freezer?

Kind of like the man with no feet

A number of years ago I came home early from work one day before our house cleaner had finished. On the kitchen table next to her purse and cell phone, I saw a small stack of socks that looked like the kind I wear.

"Are those mine?" I asked her.

"Yes," she said. "I happened to see them in the waste basket in your bedroom."

"What do you use them for," I asked, "dusting?"

She gave me an indulgent smile. "No, I'm going to take them to the homeless shelter where I volunteer."

"But all of those socks all have holes in the toes," I protested, "that's why I threw them away."

"The people at the shelter who have no socks at all won't care about the holes."

Thoroughly shamefaced? Yes. Have I changed my ways? No. I still throw away things that have a little wear or use still in them, but now I feel guilty when I do it.

Happy Black History Month

When I was very young – somewhere between three and five – I heard my parents talking one evening when they thought I was asleep. They were discussing the two baby dolls I had which were alike in most ways, except that one was a white baby and the other one was black. They had noticed that I played with the white doll more than the other one.

I understood that this troubled them, but I didn’t understand why. As far as I can remember, that was the last I heard of it, and it was years later that I was able to understand their concern.

If they had asked me why I preferred the white doll, I would have explained that the body of the black baby doll was made of some hard material, possibly hard plastic, whereas the white baby had a cloth body stuffed with something soft, and a head of soft plastic, and was infinitely nicer to cuddle.

I give my parents credit for keeping an eye out for signs of incipient racism, but they needn’t have worried. I grew up to be an equal opportunity cuddler.