Word: letters
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Pressed for posterity between two slabs of cardboard--on stationery the color of New England clam chowder--was a handwritten fan letter from the President of the United States. I was touched and flattered--my ego swelled like a self-inflating raft. But more important, the letter has served in the months since as a Rorschach test for everyone who reads it: a minireferendum on the presidency, a war in Iraq writ tiny--but legibly, and even grammatically, with impeccable spelling...
...Bush," as he signed the letter, was writing to congratulate me on hanging up my column after two decades at his favorite weekly sports magazine. "Dear Mr. Sports Illustrated," he began, consecrating me with a presidential nickname, like Turd Blossom or Pootie-Poot or the immortal Brownie. "I read your final ... article in your literary home of 19 years. Like many who enjoy your work, I'll miss your humor, your style, and compassion...
...days passed, I began shamelessly showing the letter to everyone I encountered, as if I were a strip-joint leafleteer on a New York City street corner...
...father, who framed a copy of the letter, said with pride, "The President of the United States took the time to write...
Many blue-staters have made the same joke, each one thinking he is the first to do so. "He can write?" they say, always followed by, "He can read?" I have now passed the letter to countless Americans and a few non-Americans--so many people that I ought to have the letter laminated, like a Waffle House menu. And the one thing that everyone agrees on--red-staters and Greenpeacers--is that he does come off on paper as funny and self-deprecating...