Love Letter . alibs c1 11114 1 41 ■ , 444 11111111111111111111.11111111 RICHARD NEWMAN SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH NEWS A letter from camp always brings a smile. 0111111111111111111 0 4101111111111lik 111111111111111111 ur mail had arrived and it was the usual collection of bills, no- tices and circulars plus one odd slightly soiled and lumpy let- ter in a purplish en- velope. The letter was addressed to THE NEWMANS on Riverside Drive. A real stamp — not one of those inky red postage meter substitutes — was licked and stuck in the corner. Across the back of the envelope, scrawled in large letters with a blue ball- point pen, was the name CAMP WITCHEE- WATCHIE. Camp Witchie-Watchie, according to the return address, was on LAKE WATCHIE-TATCHIE somewhere in Maine's north woods. My wife opened the letter. Why not? It was addressed to us. Inside was one of those prefab greeting cards, the kind that are manufactured for children at sleep-away camps so that they can meet the camp requirement of having written a letter home. The letter went something like this: . How are you? Today is Dear . We played . We had We went ...etc. Hope you are well. . I am Love In the appropriate spaces were the words — Arts and Crafts, swimming, lunch, Tues- day, good, etc. The letter was signed in large enthusiastic capital letters...PAULINE! Squashed in the envelope was a large pinkish piece of folded paper. Unfolded, the paper radiated with a happy smiley face in ballpoint, drawn to fill the entire sheet. Across the bottom, again in capital letters and signed once more in the same exuber- ant hand, was the name PAULINE!!! and the three even bigger words, I LOVE YOU!!! My wife blinked away tears of joy, turned to me and said, "She loves us." "Honey," I said gently, taking the letter from her hand and admiring the smiley face grinning back at me from the paper. "I hate to be the bearer of bad tidings. I really do. But our kids are all in their twenties, none of them are at camp...and we don't have a girl named Pauline." I've got to say, my wife took the news well. We re-examined the letter. A close in- spection confirmed that it was, in fact, tru- ly sent to THE NEWMANS on Riverside Drive. However, the numbers in the ad- dress, written in the same exuberant hand- writing as the signature inside, were not quite so intelligible. Maybe, just maybe, the number 9 was really supposed to be a num- ber 1 to which a little too much embellish- ment had been added. What to do now? A diligent line-by-line perusal of the tele- phone book turned up, as we suspected, an- other family of NEWMANS on Riverside Drive, a few blocks away, a family un- doubtedly wondering why they hadn't heard from their daughter Pauline. My wife got on the phone and, taking care not to alarm the woman who answered, asked if she was the mother of a child named Pauline at Camp Witchie-Watchie. The mother said Yes. 'Wonderful! Hi! She's written to us," said my wife. She explained about receiving the letter, our common name and the indistinct address. She treated the woman to the com- plete story of Pauline's day at camp, using our knowledge about Tuesday...Arts and crafts ...lunch... and so on. My wife, spar- ing no detail, gushed on about the beauti- ful drawing and told Pauline's mother, "She loves us!" "You're a lucky woman," said the moth- er. "She's a lovely girl." "I can tell," said my wife. "She's one of a pair of twins. They're both lovely. Her sister Yvonne is at the camp too. Pauline is two minutes older." They chatted awhile, the mother and my wife, and in that brief period of time became good friends. They had the children in com- mon. My wife promised to mail our letter from Pauline so that her mother could ad- mire it also. I was glad. Moral issues aside, I hope that satisfied the Post Office. Regulations are so strict about opening other people's mail. My wife hung up smiling until a thought hit her. A troubled shadow settled on her face. "What's the matter," I said. "That's funny." She bit the inside of her mouth in consternation. "I wonder why Yvonne didn't write?" ❑