LETTERS FROM HOME: WHERE NOTHING GROWS OLD EXCEPT THE CHILI DOG IN YOUR DESK

March 18, 1999

Dear Leslie,

The approach of the Academy Awards is a reminder that 10 years have passed since I left Southern California. Ten years since our desks sat side by side and you wondered what would become of your young and pregnant daughter, and I wondered what I was doing trying to learn to surf in my 30s.

The atmosphere in that office was unlike any I'd been in before, unlike any I've known since. Up to that point, the ability to defend yourself in a spontaneous rubber band fight had not been part of my journalism training. After two weeks, Dixie the Mixer told me some of the guys thought I was aloof and suggested I do something to change their minds.

What?, I asked. Oh, hiding food in someone's desk would probably take care of it, she said.

So I went to a restaurant and bought the biggest chili dog they had, extra onions please. It fit nicely into the bottom drawer of Bob the Prankster's desk. That was on a Friday. Monday morning, a squadron of flies was circling Bob's desk and I was one of the guys. I bought a rubber band gun.

I'd never heard of a newspaper asking readers to review movies. Do you remember Uncle Don, the columnist? He started out as a movie reviewer and was so lively he was kept on.

Don was a bit like Joe Bob Briggs minus Briggs' awareness that his views are politically incorrect. His favorite TV show was "Married ... with Children."

Don slagged his wife, religion, both political parties and actors, actresses and directors he considered gutless, often all in the same column. He liked movies with explosions and breasts.

Don's columns were funny but I imagined him a disagreeable person. Not so. Our weekly phone conversations due to his column being dependably late evolved into a kind of friendship. He sent me a copy of an old bootleg tape of the Velvet Underground, one of his favorite bands. Uncle Don was secretly artsy.

He was a reminder that people are always much more multifarious than the outer facade they project to the world.

You seemed a woman who was uncertain of herself after graduating from journalism school at 40. Now you're on the staff of one of the best newspapers in the world.

Cool Robert the Heartthrob, Lance the Funkiest Bass Player Alive and Rex the Artist remain memorable characters to me. When I asked Rex to illustrate a story about a Christmas rock 'n' roll benefit concert, he drew a cartoon depicting three guitar-playing Wise Men duck-walking to Bethlehem.

One of my responsibilities was editing a boating page whose chief correspondent was a salt with cataracts and leathery skin. I never knew if his photographs were blurry because taking sharp pictures aboard a sailboat is difficult or because his eyesight was so bad.

Tom the Editor confessed to me over a few beers that returning punts for his high school football team was the scariest thing he'd ever done. I believed him, though presiding over that newspaper probably came in second.

I loved the playfulness, but Southern California seemed full of people holding onto their childhoods. Eventually the time comes to let go.

People grow old here in Missouri, and we're the richer. It isn't necessarily Hollywood pretty, but it is the way the grain of life runs.

The 1989 Academy Awards awards show was memorable to me because I watched in a Big Sur bar far from Hollywood and was glad to be there.

Love, Sam

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