Anonymous Letter

Never answer an anonymous letter. – Yogi Berra

Buddy,

You better be careful.  There’s a new sheriff in town, with a stunted sense of humor and stunted appreciation for those who prefer to Make America Great Again in unapproved ways.

You might want to stay off the internet for the next four years.

Seriously, hide.

The old man thought he was holed up in the right place already.  A fenced bird sanctuary.  Guards at the gate.

No name on the house.  No name on the mailbox.  No friends.  Blinds at an angle behind tinted windows.

Hard to not draw attention to himself, so he rarely left the house.

Dressed like the locals when he went to town.  Albeit in a far darker palette.  Just because you disappear in PDX, doesn’t mean the PDX disappears in you.  Twenty years later, nearer thirty, he still dreamed he could make it back.  Had enough friends, thought he could live quite comfortably for maybe six months before anybody noticed he didn’t have a place of his own.

The old man used to get hate mail back in Oregon.  A story about clear cutting the hillsides and one old lady wrote to suggest if leaf lovers want to see trees, they can go to to the park.  Any strict constructionist would surely defend his defense of The Piss Christ, right?

Wrong.  Turns out Erma Bombeck was a lesser risk.  The old man guessed some senior real estate agents were still pissed off – to this day – by his “Street of Screams.”

And he became too popular.  So, when he lost his column after offending the local politicos, major corporate entities, and a few minor ones, he decided probably he should leave town.

One local neighborhood newspaper made his departure their cover story.  Headline read: RUN RUN.  Just to make sure the old man didn’t come back.

Complete hit piece.  Here’s just a sample: “Things came easy for him.  Maybe too easy.  Besides being a rangy 6-foot-3, dark featured and strikingly handsome, he is intelligent, athletic and witty.”  Gets worse.  Granted, I’m a quote machine, but he left out my full head of  curly locks.

The old man was quoted as saying, “This town’s not going to change so I better.  Tilting at windmills is a characteristic that often serves me poorly.”

Never did figure if the writer was jealous or hitting on him.

The old man never changed.  But he liked to think he had improved.

Still rangy.