Tying the Present to the Past

Although Godwriting and Heavenletters could not have been predicted, I can look back and see some ties. Heading the list are newsletters. An abundance of newsletters. All my classes made newsletters and magazines. And now there’s Heavenletters, a newsletter, every day.

The first teaching I ever did was with a special government work/study foreign student program at the college I was attending. These students were not really matriculating at the college. They were tradesmen in a special work/study program associated with the college, and I became the secretary (we weren’t called assistants then). This was while I was still a student. This was a good deal. I got free tuition, and, because the government designated my salary and reimbursed the college, I made more money than any of the secretaries at the college, including the President’s!

The workers were from every country in Western Europe, and we had a wonderful time. We chartered busses and toured America. We published the student writings, and called the newsletter The Link, which, I suppose, could have been a name chosen for Heavenletters. It could have been.

Of all the junior high school newsletters, I remember only one title, The Wee People in 102. We called it that because on the first day of school, a 7th grade boy named Scott just couldn’t stay in his seat. He really couldn’t. So I gave him things to do so he could move around and I could think it was my idea. When I spotted him trying to stick his head behind the file cabinets, I said: “Scott, what are you doing?