LETTERS FROM HOME: THAT WAS THE YEAR THAT WAS LIKE 'BLUE MOON' ON HELIUM

New Year's Eve 1998

Dear Pat,

We are trapped in the spin cycle of U.S. history.

1968 was the last year in memory that approached this year's bizarreness. Thirty years ago, King and Kennedy were assassinated, and riots broke out at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. All this one year after the Summer of Love.

Thirty years later, our faithless president is impeached by members of the House of Representatives who vote their consciences along party lines; a 77-year-old senator blasts into outer space and, like a kid on a careening roller coaster, throws up when he lands; and two sluggers pulverize baseball's most hallowed record. Say no more.

1998 was also a year when all three of DC's siblings and their families came to town at the same time, a phenomenon that hadn't occurred for a decade. Their parents' 50th wedding anniversary brought them home.

DC's sister, Danel, created a memory book filled with old photographs. There their parents were, younger than springtime, getting married and increasing their family. In pictures, you could see the family gradually leaving home to do the same.

DC's parents have watched the family flower for 50 years but surely couldn't have imagined the ways they would be reflected in their descendants.

All four children followed into their father's profession in one way or another. All take their church-going seriously and their musical abilities for granted.

When DC gets angry at her father it's not because they have differences but because they're so alike.

Seeing the six grandchildren together made it obvious that they evince their grandparents in ways as well. One plays trombone like her grandfather, others have their grandmother's fair skin.

I laughed at church to see Danel's daughters passing notes just like she and DC used to and getting busted by their grandmother just like she and DC still do.

We did family activities together, like bowling because we couldn't agree on a movie everyone wanted to see.

I got to meet my niece Monica for the first time. She's a pretty English major at UCLA who takes courses in Australian literature and writings about vampires. English majors ain't what they used to be, but then English isn't what it used to be either.

DC wanted to explode fireworks at the anniversary reception at the church hall but we stopped her because no one wanted to remember such a special day as the time the family got arrested together.

When the family gathered at a restaurant for a dinner after the 50th anniversary reception, the Neosho nieces sang "Blue Moon" after inhaling helium from the 50th anniversary balloons.

In a way, that chipmunky performance summed up the year. At least there were some good movies.

One of my favorites of 1998, "Pleasantville," makes the point that it's not knowing what's going to happen that puts the charge into being alive.

Bring on 1999.

Love, Sam

~Sam Blackwell is a staff writer for the Southeast Missourian