Message #151349

[franksolich]

Some years later--seven, to be exact--when I was starting college, my mother wrote me a letter, contemplating upon what she should do about my younger brother, then 16 years old.

My father had died by then, and my mother was dying, although there appeared no evidence of the latter.

Of all her children, my mother wrote to me most often.  Not because there was anything special about me, but because while her other children of course wrote her, I was the only one who dutifully wrote her every single day.  The siblings had it easier; they could telephone her every day, but I had no choice but to write instead.

She enclosed with the letter the entire front page of the local newspaper, in which was described a "prank" attempted by my younger brother and two of his friends.  It had been a rather, uh, overambitious prank, the result being that six enormous bison from the city park had been roaming the streets of the town.

(No damage done, these being pretty tame bison, but it was a good thing much of the populace had been wearing brown pants upon encountering the sight.)

My mother had sent me the entire front page of the newspaper, and I idly flipped it over, to see if there might be something of interest on page 2.

The editor, sometimes to fill empty spaces in an edition of his newspaper, culled things from the "morgue," to make an "Out of the Past" column, retelling random stories dating back to 1890, when the county had first been settled.

There was a "On This Date 7 Years Ago," "Mark Connelly was charged with assaulting Wendy Switzer"--and then the grim accusing finger, during ".....the party at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Harris, Sr."