With trembling hands, I slid my thumb under the perforated seal in anticipation of news that could be only good or bad.
The envelope had the image of the bald eagle, a line of stars and the word “official” two places in front and once in back. It came with the familiar no-nonsense san-serif font we’re all familiar with, and it bore specific instructions:
- “To be opened by addressee only.” Darn! I was hoping my neighbor James Sandoval would be the first to open it.
- “Postmaster: Follow official postal rules.” Really? Don’t postmasters sometimes take home official-looking envelopes with the idea of making paper airplanes?
- “Do not discard this envelope.” Oooh! Shivers down my spine. I’ll be enjoying decades of accommodation at Leavenworth if I pitch this envelope. Maybe I can join my uncle who grew old there after removing one of those silly tags from a “Silly” mattress (I mean “Sealy,” but that’s a topic for a later column.)
- “Official U.S. mail recipient.” Well, now, that makes me feel all warm and runny inside. For too many years I’ve doubted my officialness. Now I have something to be proud of. Remember those bumper stickers, blazoned with red, white and blue stars and stripes that read “Official U.S. Taxpayer”?
Now the anticipation that took place before I opened the letter reminded me of both good and bad news.
First the good: The envelope looked like the tan-colored enveloped we received once every three months, containing our wages for military service. In my teens, I’d rush to the mailbox for that quarterly check that contained about $35, my wages for 12 drills with the National Guard.
The other good news was with the implicity that the envelope contained a refund or rebate check from the government. Whee! We get to thank the politicos for giving us back some of our own money.
Now the bad:
When an envelope has the words “official” and “do not discard,” I pay attention. But in this case, it was a demand for more money. Somehow the feds determined I owed them more. And Uncle Sam isn’t patient. They want money by return mail. No questions asked. Please remit no later than noon yesterday.
So what was in the envelope I received Monday? Well, I was entitled to buy funeral insurance. Don’t rush me, fellas.
What kind of mental lightweights do these companies think we Official U.S. Postal Recipients are?
• • •
November was a busy month, with much feedback on recent columns. Here’s some of it:
• A column extolled the capabilities of iPhones, those devices that contain dozens of “apps” which enable us to use the phone as an e-mail device, a Scrabble game, a level, a tune identifier, an alarm clock, and much more.
I wrote about a friend, Em Krall, singing into my wife’s iPhone and the phone’s inability to make out the tune. Sandy Poppers, a local computer expert, e-mailed to say the newer version of iPhone can make out voices. So I tried. Using the voice I was born with, I sang most of “(Many a tear has to fall but) It’s all in the Game.”
Nada. Did the iPhone shun me because my singing voice is like that of Tiny Tim, before his voice changed?
• A long-time acquaintance who also belonged to the Guard and no doubt ran to the mailbox every three months for his paycheck, Cirilio Saavedra, mentioned enjoying Work of Art, “especially those that start with ‘Way back when …,’” he said.
C.D. certainly has a lot to fall back on, as this column marks the 359th installment, dating back to May 1, 2003. Columns dealing with my childhood in “way back when” Las Vegas number 70. There are 128 columns on language.
• Ronald Trujillo (no relation), a counselor at Pecos Middle School, reacted to a reference in my column to “Free Credit Reports,” which are indeed free, if you agree to a long-term membership that costs $30 a month.
Ronald is the son of a former Highlands colleague of mine, Daniel Trujillo. Ronald mentioned a recent experience in trying to buy a car in the “cash for clunkers” program and noted that the innocuous and affordable 5.9 percent rate mysteriously grew to 15 percent.
His decision: Pay off the credit cards and rework the car loan.
• • •
On Baca Street, between Seventh and Eighth streets, there’s a popular bird hangout on some power lines. I photographed a cluster of birds, pointing out that a single bird perched on the lower line while virtually the entire supporting cast of Hitchcock’s thriller, “The Birds,” occupied the top line.
Lydia Gonzales, who lives near that avian meeting place, said, “They’ve had a favorite spot there forever. I used to tell (grandson) Amador that it was a classroom and the bird on the bottom line was the teacher.”
The only ones unhappy to see such signs of life might be those whose cars park underneath the hangout. We can almost hear one bird crowing to its classmate, “I just put down a deposit on a new Ford.”
• • •
We’ve become so obsessed with political correctness that we’re afraid to use words like “Christmas” for fear of offending someone. That’s why “Season’s Greetings” has become common. But what’s religious about Thanksgiving? Driving by the electronic message board near Robertson High School, I saw the term “Fall Break” where we might have expected “Thanksgiving.”
“Spring Break” has replaced the oh-so-holy “Easter.” Isn’t Thanksgiving secular anyway?
If we really need to de-Christianize the language, let’s be thorough. All the week days derive, respectively, from ancient gods, Mani, the moon god; Tiw, god of war and law; Woden, chief god of Norse mythology; Thor, god of thunder; and Frija, goddess of love.
To avoid the P.C. police, we might need to secularize these words too. But then again, that might make the gods angry.