Memories ....

[libby]

Stayed in today, and have spent the better part of the last 4 hours going through a box of old letters and cards. Mostly have been smiling as I remember the people who wrote them.

As a young adult I went through a crisis that included but was not limited to the death of my father. There I was, back home living with mom, with my sweet baby boy. His father, a marine, was in jail. Luckily my old boss at the hospital found out I was back and offered me my old job -- which I gladly accepted. It was a time I did not want to think, so in addition to job and baby, I read every spare minute, and when, as an amateur astronomer, I found instructions for making a telescope, a 100 power reflector, decided to do it.  And did. Still have it. Anyway, back to reading. By then I was reading mostly science fiction, especially Isaac Asimov (a scientist who wrote science fiction), so decided to write him a letter about one of his short stories that really impressed me: Nightfall.

The point of this story: He wrote back to me, and I found his letter in the box a little while ago. Here's what he wrote:

"Thank you very much for your letter of 24 October.

I was delighted that I have been the occasion of your pleasure. Putting the necessity of earning a living to one side, I write in order that I might give pleasure and it is something that gives me pleasure in return to know that I have succeeded.

I hope that I will never disappoint you.  Isaac Asimov"

[Palehorse]

AWESOME! 

A treasured keep-sake to say the least. 

[libby]

Yes! and thank you, Palehorse. 

[Locutus]

That's a great story and a great keepsake Libby. 

[Purplelady1040]

Awesome story and thanks for sharing.

[AbbyTC]

That's really cool, Libby! 

[parkerdivine]

That is so cool, Libby.  What a treasure.

[libby]

Thanks all y'all.  And by the way, for those of you who live in Indiana: I found out from another one of those old letters that I have two cousins  who live in Elkhart -- or at least used to. And no, Y, if you read this, their surname is not Gaither. 

[The Troll]

  Reading your wonderful memory, made me think of one of mine.  It is a bitter sweet memory.  Many years ago when I was working at Ford Motor Co. in Indianapolis.  I heard that Bobby Kennedy was in the factory.  I started walking toward where I thought he was at.  I walked out between two big machines and sorta surprised him.  He was a small man and he looked really tired from all the campaigning he had been doing.  We shook hands and talked for a very short time and he then walked of with the people he was with.   I was just one of the many people he had talked to in the past weeks.

  The next evening he was shot and killed in California and his life cut short.   

[Locutus]

Wow!  You saw him the day before he does.

[Palehorse]

  Reading your wonderful memory, made me think of one of mine.  It is a bitter sweet memory.  Many years ago when I was working at Ford Motor Co. in Indianapolis.  I heard that Bobby Kennedy was in the factory.  I started walking toward where I thought he was at.  I walked out between two big machines and sorta surprised him.  He was a small man and he looked really tired from all the campaigning he had been doing.  We shook hands and talked for a very short time and he then walked of with the people he was with.   I was just one of the many people he had talked to in the past weeks.

  The next evening he was shot and killed in California and his life cut short.   

I was a paperboy in SW Suburban Chicago, and I delivered the morning papers that day with a full page, color picture of Mr. Kennedy laying on that floor with his blood pooling beneath him. I knew it had happened and so was anxiously waiting the delivery of my papers so I could get them to my customers as early as possible. Most of them were waiting on their porches for me much to my surprise. . . (Including that older sister of a friend of mine. . . But that's another memory.)