Dear Tom

I’m 83 now and my writing is hurting, and so is everything else

BUT

I’ve had a good life and I feel fine.  So I’m sore and stiff and happy.

(comments from Tom!)

1)This is called a keeper.  It will be scanned and put on this blog so that people can contemplate the physical trace of a man’s passage on earth.  All of us can recognize Dad’s handwriting in a nanosecond, and, just as with the legs of beautiful women, it doesn’t change all that much.  The last thing standing.  Thousands of paragaphs, and countless letters, are as dust compared to something like this.

2) The Jack Benny effect in our family.  I have a mariage certificate signed by Father Siesel giving essential information on mom and dad on the day of the mariage.  Thanks to this document, we learn that both were born in 1926.  But today, the Jack Benny effect, they both say and write that they are 83, whisking away a year that would have ruined everything.  This is funny, and certainly the kind of thing that will be remembered for ages.  Here are two people who couldn’t care less about dates.  Their time frame is something intimate, and cosmic at the same time.

3) What can I say, except thank you.  I’m sure the boys will get a commotion when they see this. 

4) God Bless You All.