LETTERS FROM HOME: SHOPPING HERE AND THERE FOR THE PROMISED LAND

March 27, 1997

Dear Julie,

We saw the Neosho nieces last weekend at Lake of the Ozarks. Danica is nearly 15, has a boyfriend and knows how to hug now. Devon, the middle child, has exchanged her studious look for contact lenses and lowers her voice when discussing the social scene with her older sister. Darci is still in grade school and has become the butt of the teen-agers' jokes, but she handles ostracism well.

We have known each other for more than three years now. I wonder how they look at me, the husband their Aunt DC took on still relatively recently, this graying guy who makes his living writing stories, who spends too much time in his head and not enough in the swimming pool. And I know a distant adult relative is hardly more than a telephone pole to a child in the throes of growing up.

Back in the beginning, we contentedly played Wiffle ball and they performed the latest steps they'd learned at Miss Sherri's Dance Studio. Now they want to go shopping, followed by miniature golf, swimming and go-kart racing if there's time.

Most of a whole day was devoted to the exploration of an outlet mall dedicated to the proposition that famous brands are better, even if they're unloading goods nobody else wanted.

Walking, walking, walking among a concrete maze of familiar road signs -- Izod, Mikasa, Laura Ashley -- pointing the way to the 20th century Promised Land, consumer nirvana.

I can't recall any purchases being made, though. Afterward, sprawled on the hotel-room bed, the conclusion formed that shopping without buying must be the most unsatisfying and exhausting of all activities.

Aunts and uncles are real people to children only insofar as they provide instructional comparisons to their own parents, I suspect. Cousins informally compare notes. This mom is more tyrannical, that dad makes more of a fool of himself.

Childhood is a secret society sworn to subverting the ruling adult class.

We have no cousins to join our nieces' militia. Just a couple of dogs whose lack of discipline speaks badly for our parental skills.

We took the nieces to see "Selena," the movie about the young Mexican-American singing star murdered by her business manager/fan club president. A combination to beware of, apparently.

It's not a good film but sniffling could be heard at the other end of the row. Not when Selena was killed but when she and her boyfriend conspired to thwart her unaccepting father by eloping.

Some movies should be rated For Teen-agers Only.

It is adults who experience tragedy when someone so young dies, who struggle to accept that youth and beauty and talent cannot provide immortality any more than Passion perfume can.

The way to be immortal is to enjoy your life and to die each day, a wise man has said.

The Cincinnati nieces and nephew, younger than the Neosho kids, are to arrive this weekend. We'll note their growth, their new passions, how much more independent of us they have become. We'll grieve a little over the childhood lost and walk on.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian.