Dear Editor,
Today I am officially older than dirt. If you had asked me half a century ago whether I would ever make it to the ripe old age of seventy, laughter would have been your answer. The elasticity is gone from the skin which used to hug my temples, and an impeccably manicured, wavy head of hair waved goodbye to this old-man’s scalp long ago. My pectorals were solid granite once upon a time; my gluteus muscles, once the well-rounded objects of fervent (once or twice) female praise, no longer create pleats in the back of my trousers. Thus is the sense of life’s humour. I suppose all is fair in this corny game of longevity. Alas, my reason for writing this letter is not to seek sympathy for my lost musculoskeletal vitality, but rather to comment on the featured essay of your last issue, which was entitled ‘Memories I Could Do Without’ by Paul Brown.
While the writing of Mr. Brown is certainly of stellar calibre and the broadness of his vocabulary quite apparent to anyone who cares to notice, I beg to offer my humble dissention to the very crux of his essay. By his own accounts, Mr. Brown has lived a difficult but sustainable life. While difficulty is of course relative to each and every individual, by just the few details he shared with us in his essay one can easily see that Mr. Brown is without doubt an incredibly courageous survivor of considerable troubles and trauma. His strength of character is quite admirable, and his frankness noteworthy and impressive. Like so many others, I myself have endured a bit of trouble and trauma - things that, as Mr. Brown himself says, I would never wish upon even my worst enemies (if they have made it to be this ancient!). Unlike Mr. Brown I am disinclined to openly share my traumatic history with the public, but the history does exist nonetheless. These memories are in fact the central elements of my point.
My point is in regards to the tribulations; those moments which dare to make or break us and then persistently push themselves, at the most inopportune moments, into the forefront of our thoughts for the rest of our natural lives. What I humbly argue is that without any recollection of these tribulations it simply would be quite impossible to be the individuals we now are. The continuous development of our inner-selves would inevitably be stifled. Even further, I truly believe that one cannot possibly be wise without first being foolish, well-versed without first being well-lived, thoughtful without first being thoughtless. The most hearty, compassionate people I know have all, at least one time in their lives, found themselves fully capable of being complete jerks.
We all know the old cliche that those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and yet so often we find ourselves doing everything we can to erase the difficult thoughts from our minds. We drink, we drop strange concoctions of chemicals, we watch movies, we read, we write - whatever it takes to encourage the conscience to think of something other than the pain. The truth is this: to neglect the memories of our most imperfect moments is to neglect the development of our minds. Survival in nature dictates that Man (and Woman, of course) must constantly evolve. We are all, as individuals of this amazing species, responsible for evolution. This is not advanced science. Or maybe it is.
I spent many, many years of my childhood frightened. I remember dreading the recurrence of certain imaginary nightmares which stemmed from a very real occasion. I do not suffer from that chronic fear anymore, or at least not for the same reasons. What scares me more now is the loss of cognitive skills which inevitably comes with advanced age, the fading of synaptic response, the numbing of those mystical cranial regions which control our most important memories. Today my most frightening recurrent nightmares are of forgetting who I am. But these are facts of life, payment for longevity. If we want to keep dancing at this funkiest of all parties then we must be willing to pay the piper. And the piper demands that we learn from the past - all of it. Only from these lessons can we find ways to appreciate the present.
I thank you for your time, and I thank you for providing me the opportunity to share my obscure birthday thoughts with an intelligent listener. Please continue striving for unmitigated excellence in publishing.
Best regards,
John Gonzalez
Mr. Gonzalez,
I wish to thank you for your thoughtful response to the essay by Dr. Paul Brown. We would like to include your letter on our Letters page this Thursday (2/2).
While we wish we could publish the letter in its entirety, we prefer to keep this section concise. As such, attached to this email is the letter as we will show it, if agreed. We think it shows enough of your letter to get your point across effectively to the reader.
If this edited version is acceptable to you, please click on the link included at the bottom of the attachment to view our copyright statements and sign electronically the required Publishing Agreement. We are of course open to comments or suggestions, but please keep in mind that our small staff has very limited time to make adjustments before deadline. Also, please be sure to include your phone number with any future correspondence.
Sincerely,
Alexandra M. Canfield
Managing Editor, Craw
Dear Ms. Canfield,
While I respect your editorial duties and abilities, and realize that you do not wish to take up the space of your whole website with one letter, it seems to me that you have essentially removed the guts from the body of my letter.
The fact that I can empathize with Mr. Brown because of my own past is important, not because I myself wish to garner sympathy from your readers but because I feel that those who have travelled down the same or similar road are most able to negotiate the potholes. Is that metaphor too much of a stretch? You have also cut out nearly all of my praise for Mr. Brown’s writing talents. This is unfortunate, as I personally feel that it is very disrespectful to criticize someone’s work solely in a negative fashion. I do not wish to offend Mr. Brown in any way. When we see that one has taken the time to find the positive criticisms, the negatives don’t seem nearly as difficult to swallow, do you not you agree?
Attached to this email is a shortened version of my original letter, one that will take up much less space on your site but still maintains the original thoughts that I wish to convey. I am confident that Mr. Brown will be very appreciative of this version.
Thank you again,
John Gonzalez
Mr. Gonzalez,
While it is fully understandable that you take issue with the results of our editorial cropping, what we apparently were unable to communicate is that the version we sent to you is the length we are willing to publish. If there were one or two sentences that you wished to add, we would perhaps be able to accommodate the changes. We in fact saw no difference whatsoever between the original letter you sent and the letter you sent this morning. You also neglected to read and sign the Publishing Agreement, which is required. However, out of respect to your wishes, we have once again reviewed and edited your letter and are confident that most of the points which you feel are most crucial are in fact included. The final version is attached to this email.
Please understand, Mr. Gonzalez, that in order to publish your letter in this issue we MUST have the agreement signed by 0900 tomorrow (Thursday). Otherwise, we will be happy to reconsider your letter for the March issue, scheduled for 2/3.
Sincerely,
Alexandra M. Canfield
Managing Editor, Craw
Dear Ms. Canfield,
Please accept my apologies for not being completely open with you. The true intent of my writing was not so much to be published in your fine magazine as to share my thoughts with Paul Brown. I knew a person by his name once upon a time and have been out of touch with him for far too many years.
While there are likely hundreds of thousands of Paul Brown’s in the world, there were so many similarities between the experiences of this man and of the person I once knew that I immediately recognized him. I was previously not aware of Paul’s chosen profession, but it makes perfect sense to find that he has found a career involving psychology. I have the utmost confidence that this is the same Paul Brown.
As I do not have Paul’s current address or phone number, and I am fairly sure you will not give it out, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind forwarding my correspondence to him. Your kindness would be greatly appreciated.
Just in case you deleted it from your files, I have attached my original letter for forwarding. Please feel free to also forward my email address, mailing address, and phone number (included below) to Paul.
I am sincerely sorry that I have already asked for so much of your time with my nonsensical and selfish pandering. I should have been more straightforward from the start. Thank you so very much for your efforts and kindness.
Best,
John Gonzalez
Dear Ms. Canfield,
You may not recall our previous correspondence regarding the essay by Paul Brown (‘Memories I Could Do Without’), as a few weeks have now passed since my first letter. I was hoping that you would forward that letter originally sent January 27”directly to Paul, but have not heard back from either of you in the past month. I do realize that you are likely much too busy to spend any more time humouring this old man, but I am just curious whether or not you have forwarded my letter. Perhaps you did not receive my last email? I sent it to you on the 2nd of February. Or perhaps you did receive it and were offended by my childishness. If so, I offer my sincere regrets and apologies.
Even so, I do still wish that you would be kind enough to forward it to Paul if you haven’t already done so. I still had the last email in which I explained my reason for writing saved in my mail files, so I attached it here, just in case, along with the original letter. When you have a moment, it would be greatly appreciated if you could let me know whether you have forwarded it to my old friend Paul.
By the way, the latest issue was spectacular - even better than the February issue. I particularly enjoyed the beautiful story about the lonely goldfish and also the wonderful photos by Dick Williams. Excellent work, as always.
Thank you again,
Sincerely,
John Gonzalez
Mr. Gonzalez,
Your original letter was forwarded in February, along with your contact info, to Dr. Brown. Perhaps it is not the same Paul Brown after all. I am sorry.
Sincerely,
Alexandra M. Canfield
Managing Editor, Craw
Dear Ms. Canfield,
Thank you for your prompt and courteous reply, and thank you again for your efforts on my behalf. Perhaps you are right, the similarities could very well have been purely coincidental.
However, I am not entirely convinced that this is the case. Is it possible that perhaps your message was not received by Paul? If I may ask, did you yourself send it, or was it an assistant? I do know how things can get crossed up while changing hands, or lost while passing between computers. Would it be entirely inappropriate to ask that you resend the letter to Mr. Brown? The inconvenience to you would be an invaluable service to me, and I would forever be grateful for your efforts (I already am).
I have again attached my original letter, plus the subsequent letter explaining everything, just in case you have deleted them from your files. Your continued kindness in the matter is so very much appreciated by this old-timer.
Very best regards,
John Gonzalez
p.s.: Are you by any chance related to the Canfield’s of Madison, WI? I once knew a Helen and Ethan Canfield there. He was a retired chief petty officer in the Navy. Good people.
Mr. Gonzalez,
Out of respect, and for some inexplicable reason a certain amount of guilt, I personally called Dr. Brown and asked him if he received your email and letter. He did. I gave him a brief background of our correspondence. He graciously thanked me for my attention to customer service. To say that I was embarrassed would be a gross understatement.
I must say, Mr. Gonzalez, this is far above the call of duty for a magazine editor. As I said, for some reason which eludes me I felt that I owed this service to you. I also called my parents (which is something I do not particularly enjoy doing) to ask if they knew your friends from Madison. They did not. But they did ask me (and I have no idea how my current position as messenger for all senior citizens of the world came to be) to extend to you an open invitation to visit their home in Minneapolis. My parents it seems were very much en rapport with your philosophical thoughts on life and empathized with your unanswered letters to Dr. Brown. They made me promise not to make you feel patronized. I do not wish to do so. My parents, however annoying, are very genuine and sincere. If they like someone, you can rest assured that it is heartfelt. Their address and phone number are included below. If you do wish to talk to them, please contact them. Not me.
With all due respect, Mr. Gonzalez, we can no longer accommodate your correspondence in our incredibly hectic schedule. I am sorry to be so blunt. Write to my parents, please. I am sure you will all get along swimmingly.
Best wishes,
Allie Canfield
Dear Mr. Gonzalez,
I just spoke with my mother and father (Mary and Ellis Canfield) and they told me about your splendid conversations of late. I am very happy that the three of you have struck up such a pleasant relationship. While their ability to annoy me has always seemed to come far too easily, I do at times worry that they do not get out enough and enjoy life in their senior years. As such, on behalf of my parents, I would very much like to accept the offer to visit your home on Mackinac Island this summer. My mother is enthusiastically making the arrangements for the first week of July - she said that this is when you could accommodate us, yes? I personally have not spent much time on Mackinac, so I am very much looking forward to the adventure. I wish to warn you, however, that I also have not spent very much time with my parents in the recent past, so it could prove to be quite an adventure in this aspect as well. Remember - you asked for it! Ok, then. So either I or my parents will be in touch very soon with travel details, etc. I look forward to meeting you, sir. Thank you again for your kind invitation.
Yours truly,
Allie
Dearest Allie,
That is quite good news indeed! Your visit to my home will be most welcome. To say that I am looking forward to finally meeting you and your wonderful parents would be a most absurd understatement. And yes, anytime in July would be a splendid time to visit, particularly during the Fourth of July festivities! Even here on the breezy island it does sometimes get quite warm in July, but the swimming pool is always open for my guests and the water temperature kept very pleasantly cool.
I do have a bit of good news myself: by last account, my long lost friend, Paul Brown, will also be visiting me this summer. Yes, ma’am, it is in fact the same Paul Brown, PhD! Without going into unnecessary detail, thirty-some years ago I was Paul’s therapist - back when he was just a young boy. As is too often the case in long-term emotional counselling, just as we were making some sort of progress with our discussions, fate moved his family away from Michigan and - well, you know how time goes by. It had been far too long since we had last spoken.
Thanks to your help, Paul and I have been in contact with each other quite frequently over the past weeks. We still have much to catch up on, of course. But I already know that I am very pleased with the man that Paul has grown to be. I am forever indebted to you for your kindness.
With any luck, you and he will perhaps be here at the same time! My humble abode is just a wee cottage compared to some of the surrounding castles, but rest assured that there will be plenty of room for all - especially since Paul is currently single. Are you? Bah, please don’t answer that – it’s a childish question!
Oh, Allie -this summer may very well prove to be one of the greatest chapters of my life. Long-overdue reunions, cordial meetings of new friends, warm sunsets on the waterfront - it will be so very beautiful.
You know, we seem to be very much alike, Paul and I. When I first recognized the similarities, and the two decades of possible friendship that was wasted, it saddened me a bit. But it is always true, of course, that there will never again be a more appropriate moment than the present to make up for lost time. Ah, the education of this ancient mind never ends, it seems!
Goodness, gracious! It certainly is a most strange and wonderful world in which we live, is it not, dear Allie?
With love and anticipation,
Your friend,
John
BOOGIE NIGHTS
MEATBALLS
PHILADELPHIA
HAROLD AND MAUDE
GLORY
TOMMY BOY
MY BODYGUARD
SNATCH
ALMOST FAMOUS
