I’m beginning to dread emptying my mailbox. Here is recent sample of missives sent to me:
A letter from a high school classmate that announces his company is downsizing and he is barely hanging on. He reports that mutual friend, fellow graduate, died of a massive heart attack just before Christmas. Another is up to 270 pounds, two others split from their wives, another suffers from "some type of unrelenting pain illness" that has kept him from working for 10 years. Another makes a mill a year as a broker; a hot babe we knew is now a grandmother; the friend’s dad had a stroke, his brother’s still a dentist, his kids are on scholarships, he himself is beginning to resemble Dom Deluise, 200 pounds, shaved head, a beard, hasn’t exercised in years. He’s planning a reunion and wants to know if I’m interested. Aren’t you curious about what people look like 35 years later? he asks. Mix the cast from Golden Girls with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and you have a pretty close idea of what that reunion will encompass. The only person I’m interested in hearing about he doesn’t mention is Cathy, the Kim Novak of North Bergen High. I haven’t even thought about these people since Nixon was President. I would like to say I’ve moved on with my life, but if high school was the high water mark for them, when does mine pop up?
A rejection note from The New York Press for a piece I sent after they advertised for new writers. Here’s NY Press’s dirty little secret; for all the flack they give The Voice, which itself has become a paper written by 50-year-olds who haven’t had a new idea in years, The Press pays its free-lancers about one quarter what their rival does – take it from one who knows. About three years ago The Press ran a writing contest, which some impulse told me not to enter. After reading hundreds of submissions they announced not a single one was worthy of publication, therefore, no one won. This from a paper which, except for Jim Knipfel’s Slackjaw column, is unreadable.
My copy of Dirty Linen arrived and I immediately placed it where visitors could see it and know that I subscribe to a world music publication with people like Thomas Mapfuno on the cover. Of course I have no time to read it or buy the music reviewed. I, like many other "aficionados," swarm to Rumsey Playground in Central Park on summer weekends to soak up Africa Fete and other such shows, swaying and bopping as though we were all raised in Zimbawae or Guinea. Then we return to our jobs at Salomon Smith Barney and our Dockers.
A woman in my book discussion group sent me a note reminding me of our next meeting where we will discuss The Leopard by Guiseppe di Lampedusa. Her name is Giovanna La Marca and to say those names over and over should constitute an entire public speaking semester.
On the cover of another envelope: "Scientists may have pinpointed prime cause of disease harboring digestive disorders!" I’m afraid to open this one, yet it may hold the secret as to why one of my old classmates is in so much pain he hasn’t worked in 10 years. "What makes the platinum Shop-Rite Credit Card from American Express so special?" another card asks. Inside is a picture of a guy smiling slyly like he just sold you dot-com stock.
A letter from Childreach is asking for money to support an indigent foreign child, complete with photos of very young, very sad looking kids. I want to help, especially when they list countries you can choose where you’d like your child to be from. I am close to whipping out my checkbook when I spot, way at the bottom, the country of Burkina Faso. Now I’m fairly well-educated and I’ve never heard of this place. It’s got to be tiny, with maybe eight kids in need, and if I send them enough dough I think I should have some say in the makeup of its parliament, road construction, holidays and irrigation ditch removal. Or it could be a slush fund disguising itself as a country. I’m asking the Current’s research department to look into this before I start sending bucks.
Finally I received an ad for The Mantis, a gardening tool resembling a motorized pogo stick that evidently can till, dig, weed, cut, de-thatch your lawn, trim, and take our wrinkles, remove birthmarks, etc. This I feel would be an ideal gift for people on my route who have more diseases and weight problems than my whole high school class, as well as all those needy kids in Central America, Asia and Africa, but who persist on spending nine hours a day kneeling, squatting, stooping, bending, crawling, and whaling away at their gardens and hedges as though their lives depended on it, which probably is the case, or maybe they’re just trying to combat depression brought on by their last high school reunion. – Joe Del Priore