2001-02-16 - 15:02 MST

February 16, 2001

A Gentler Time

I have a pen pal, a real live pen pal. Situations reversed this time. I had several pen pals as a child, but the one I liked the best is the patient lady, much older than I who was willing to put up with the drivel coming from this boy. I learned from her, probably not as much as I should have, but I learned.

At times she captured my attention more than my parents did, home was so day to day and boring. She brought new outlooks to me and gave me reason to think. For the most part grown ups ordered me to think. "You really made a mess this time, think about that." Shoot I didn't have to think about that as I dreaded what would happen next. "Don't do it that way, think !"

My mentor from afar didn't have to handle discipline, but she did know how to talk to a little person using gentle encouragement and instigating thought on my part. No lessons, no tests, no memorization. Thinking back, I think she talked to me in her writing as if I was an adult -- but pitched at a level I could understand.

My other pen pals, one was in England, one on the east coast and one in the northwest helped me too. Helped me become acquainted with communication with others. It also helped me understand the differences of weather, people and customs between where I lived and their place of residence.

Letters between the lady and I became less frequent, possibly she had health problems I don't really know. And I, girls. Pen pal-ing lost out due to the constraint of time. I couldn't obsess about girls and keep up correspondence too.

Now here is this person about the same age as I when I started the pen pal thing paying me the compliment of wanting to be my pen pal. It makes me hope that I will be as helpful as my older distant mentor was to me.

What do I say to a younger person ? My younger relatives are not the type to be interested in such conversations. I have hopes that my grandson in Oregon who is ten years old now will eventually go for such activity and his sister two years younger might just do that, at least I hope so.

But, I am enabled to look through a child's eyes and and see the world the same way. Makes me remember the great fun some things were. I remember when I was in grade school, we would go early to school to build a slide place, scuffing snow and sliding on it until it was icy and then trying for long distances. If it was already icy that was all to the good. I remember the time we waited for the trees to give up their spitball ammunition. If we caught it at the right time the spitballs would be the size to fit nicely into our tubes.

Back then, people had time to be nice to each other in spite of their natural orneryness. It was A Gentler Time . . . . . .

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