Most of all, thanks for being you

When I went to my newspaper reunion a couple of weeks ago, I was surprised to hear my former managing editor—more recently editor of the El Paso Times—say that he still had a letter I had written him when he stepped into the position of editor of the University Star, and that he keeps it close at hand and reads often. For my money, if he's read it once a year for the 40 years since we graduated from college, that still qualifies as "often."

In our exchange of emails after the festivities, he asked for my fax number so he could fax the letter to me. Fax machines may not always be optimal for sending old documents; when the letter came through on my end, the type from the old Remington I'd written it on had faded enough to make the copy I got almost unreadable. A couple of passes through a modern photocopier helped it some, so I was able to make out most of it with a bit of squinting and ferreting out what almost seemed to be code.

As soon as I was able to read some of it, I showed it to one of my friends at work who clearly didn't understand the significance to me, not of what the letter said but of the fact that Don still has it—and isn't horrified to say he still reads it. I have to give it to my friend: she was right to hoot at first about the opening few sappy lines; in fact, after I figured out what it said, I wondered how crazy Don must have been to have suffered through them to read the rest of  the text!

In fact, my first response on hearing that he had the letter had been to blurt out, "How presumptuous did I have to have been to have sent him anything like that in the first place?" The current students who were listening to the story assured me that writing it was "cool," especially since it clearly had meant enough to Don for him to tell them about it. I guess he must have still liked me when he got it; he survived the opening lines of syrup!

Farther into the letter, I thought I did all right. Essentially, the message was that the Star was a lot like a thoroughbred that needs both a strong hand to tame it and a soft touch to reassure it; I suspect that image came largely from the horses statue that was the focal point of our campus, because my personal knowledge of horse care—or, for that matter, of pet care back then—was small.

I think I saw a lot of influence of The Prophet in the letter, which isn't surprising since The Prophet  continues to be among my favorite philosophical works, probably as much for its simplicity as for its wisdom. Maybe that influence was what touched Don; maybe some of Kahlil Gibron's thoughts were really what touched him most.

Last weekend, when I was dumping pictures off the camera I had taken with me to the reunion,  I picked the best pictures of the five of us—Don, Ann, Peggy, Jane, and me—and forwarded them to everybody in that group. Don surprised me again by telling me he had also put his hands on my "thirty letter, " the traditional final message from an outgoing editor to the staff. I suppose that at one time I was in possession of Jane's thirty letter, but as much as I loved Jane as editor, I don't have a clue what might have happened to her letter.

And knowing that Don had mine was not only touching but also a little scary: what in the heck had I done with that? I know I wasn't very happy about leaving my post; I had hoped to have another semester at it, but I learned that campaigning to hold a spot that I thought I had managed pretty well just doesn't hold up well against a contender who has identified weaknesses and has bright new ideas to put forth. "Bitter" isn't quite the right word for the way I felt, although I did feel as if I could continue to do a better job than the contender would do, but "hurt" is not too far off the mark. So what did I put in the letter that had touched Don enough that he kept it?


Don's message telling me he had found the letter asked for my address so he could mail this one, and I watched the box carefully until it arrived today. Inside the envelope I found a hand-written note from Don, saying that he had sent me my original and kept a copy for himself. How amazed I am that he still wants to have a copy!

This letter is also typed out on the old Remington, this time on Star letterhead; after all, I was still the editor then. And I was pretty proud of myself when I read this one. I don't think it has nearly the heart of the other, but I was pleased to see that I had managed to point out some special contribution from each of the staff who had been special to me and to thank them for what they had done.

The second page was mostly the words to a song that was popular at the summer camp where my brother and I had worked for a couple of summers. It was purportedly written by another of the camp counselors, and since I can't find a shred of evidence of its existence anywhere else, I pretty much assume that's true. The essence of it is in the chorus:

Thank you for what you've made of me

and thank you for all the good things I see.

Thank you for what you say and do,

but most of all, thank you for being you!

I can't carry a tune in a bucket and I don't think I know anybody any more except my brother who might even remember hearing it, but that song has stayed with me through friendships coming and going for many years. I think I love it as much today as I did then.

And thinking about it now, seeing how those letters have come back to me from Don, I see even more how much Don and Jane and Peggy and Ann contributed to what came of  me.

And all this time, I really didn't know that I had ever mattered very much to anybody. Maybe somewhere I really did do something good.