Last night, I found a forgotten box in the bottom drawer of my bookshelf. In it was a trove of letters (mostly hand-written) from my parents, my brother, and me, to my grandparents...written from the late 1960's all the way through the early 1990's.

When was the last time you sent a hand-written letter to anyone that was not a short note on a card? (e.g., thank-you/congratulations/condolence, etc.)

It has probably been at least 15 years for me.

One of the few letters in the box that wasn't to my grandparents was a copy of a note from my mother to my Aunt Linda. I think I had seen the note before; it looked familiar.

In part, my mother wrote, "I guess I have come to Orcas Island to be healed, but whether or not the physical healing takes place, a growth in spirit is already evident. My room faces a tiny inlet on the sound, gulls and sea otters and rain and lapping water--and even, would you believe, a friendly housefly--are all healing to the spirit while physical and emotional work do their job on the rest of my body."

It was postmarked Nov 10, 1980. My mother died the next day. As many of you know, she was 37. She would have turned 65 a couple weeks ago, on August 17.

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Another letter was dated Oct 21, 1968. Unlike most of the letters in the box, this was a typewritten form fundraising letter to my grandparents. The return address said:

Frontiers of Science Fellowship
Harbinger Springs PO Box 504
Middleton, California 95461

I guess even hippies knew something about marketing...the letter was probably sent out to the parents of many of the Harbinger members, and they probably surmised that if they called it the "Harbinger Hippie Commune" then the chances of raising money from mom and dad would fall like a blind roofer.

It was titled, "The Love Letter," and in part, it said, "We've got something beautiful hanging in the balance...a model for the world of a new life-style of deep caring & creative innovation. It's happening and it's the most exciting endeavor any of us have ever known....what do you say? Can you feel our hearts, or see our souls in the pictures?"

Of course, there were the requisite pictures. Maybe I can pick out Peter and Marcy in the group picture, but it doesn't matter in the end if it's them...they were both there, living the dream.

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Today I finished a book called "The Great Derangement," with the subtitle "A Terrifying True Story of War, Politics & Religion at the Twilight of the American Empire," by Matt Taibbi. It was a fascinating book; primarily, Taibbi took two groups to task: first, the hard-right whack job evangelicals (he joined one of their churches in Texas, undercover) and second, the hard-left 9-11 conspiracy theory nutcases (the people who think that 9-11 was giant evil plot orchestrated by Cheney, Rumsfeld, et. al.). Both groups have alarmingly large numbers of adherents.

My favorite passage was a story of an evangelical preacher, Phil Fortenberry, speaking to Taibbi and the flock about Fortenberry's nephew’s kids:

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"Both of his kids had fallen on the ground in respiratory distress, half conscious, writhing around, gasping for air," Fortenberry said. "And I said to my nephew, I said, it isn't something they've done. It's something you've done."

The crowd murmured in assent.

"I told my nephew to look around the house," Fortenberry continued. "I said, 'Do you have a copy of Harry Potter?' And he said yes. And I said, 'That's your problem.' So I told him to go get that copy of that book, tear it in half, and throw it out the window. So he does it, and guess what? Both of those kids stood up completely recovered, just like that."

He snapped his fingers, indicating the speed with which the kids had jumped up in recovery. The crowd cooed and applauded.

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And that story from Taibbi is so perfect on its own that I have no further comment on it.

Happy Labor Day.