Dear Mr. Postman, Send Me a Note?

My good writing buddy, Dad #167 asks in a recent post on his blog, Why Do I Blog? Ironically, I have been asking the very same thing. I guess it is mostly some offshoot of self exhibitionism or a lonely hearts club of sorts. It's a perfect way to waste my time.

The other day I went out to my mail mailbox and found it empty! Not even a bill or a mailer! I felt so unimportant. Doesn't anybody write real letters anymore? Does anyone even know how to write one? Does anyone remember when people actually used to write letters? I have written many to friends over the years. Not a one lately. Why bother? E-mails fill the void.

It's an odd feeling to blog. It's like reading poetry to an empty room. An exercise in self. Me to me. In a Tom Waits song "Better Off Without a Wife" he muses "spend a lotta' time with myself. We get along so well..."

I had hoped for comments: "Just love your stuff" "Made my day", "Heavy", "Insightful", "Crap" "A waste of my time!" "Keep writing dude". Anything!

I get a bite once in a while but the fish escapes into the abyss.

A Shining Example Of An "A" Paper

     I know that many of you have struggled with English, grammar and the writing of essays for your English classes in High School or college.  And although the debate rages on over what exactly constitutes "good writing", for me it has never been a mystery.  Following is a perfect example of an "A" paper written by one of my students many years back in one of my Beginning English classes:

MY ENGLISH TEACHER

     Mr. Rick Rivers is my English teacher.  He teaches at San Joaquin Delta College and he knows English, French (This stuff about French was fabricated by the student but he got some "points" for it anyway!), and Spanish. He speaks and reads these languages well.

     He is not a young man, but he is not old.  He is a good looking man, tall, but not too tall, handsome with dark-brown hair just beginning to gray.  He is always well dressed but quietly, in good taste.  He usually wears suits of dark-brown, dark-blue, or dark-gray.

     He speaks quietly and pleasantly, but there is strength under his quietness and every student in class knows this.  He is quiet and pleasant because he is strong and as the poem says "Strength is generally quiet; weakness is not."

     He reads a great many books and corrects all his students homework.   He works very late, sometimes till two in the morning, but generally he goes to bed about twelve o'clock (This was a lie too, but it sure sounded good).  He is a very good teacher at San Joaquin Delta College.

Sengthay Thao