P.S.

Due to a somewhat nomadic childhood, I kept a fairly significant correspondence during my early years, much of which I have reviewed and culled during this past week.

When my family moved in third grade, my former classmates sent me letters, all in cursive, all in proper letter format on yellow and blue-lined wide ruled paper. The pedagogue in me appreciates my teacher's creativity: while the content of the letters is middling, it was the perfect thing to cheer up a homesick nine-year-old while practicing penmanship and letter writing.

The culling carnage was rather drastic (yellow and blue-lined wide ruled paper recycles well, I hope) but I couldn't resist recording the following from two of the letters:

Larry W- closes his letter by informing me that: "P.S. I have a hermit crab."

...and Chadd K- writes:

"Dear Sara,
Hey Sara! Guess what are [sic] class got a new student in are [Chadd dear, we need to work on homonyms] room. Her name is "Brenda." She still isn't as good as you."

If I recall correctly, "Brenda" was the daughter of the couple who bought our house (it was a very small town). After we moved, there was a rather unfortunate incident involving our homemade swing set: we left in the winter, and my father intended to return in the spring to extricate it from the frozen Pennsylvania ground. (My father has carpentry in the blood. Suffice to say it was a well-built swing set, involving post holes and cement.) Unfortunately, due to a miscommunication that remains nebulous to this day, Brenda's father and my father exchanged a series of heated words (an anomaly for my father; I can say nothing of Brenda's) and my siblings and I were never to swing on that swing set again.

In summation, despite the fact that my father spent this past Sunday's morning exhorting us to seek justice rather than revenge (he also has preaching in the blood), I have just taken my score-long revenge: Chadd K-, dear boy, I agree completely.