It’s only the old, old story, but the piece is repeated each day.

Hans Christian Andersen, “What the Moon Saw,” 1840  

To: gentlereader@yourhouse.com
From: chillygator@jamison.com
Subject: Happily Ever After  

I don’t like fairy tales that end “and they lived happily ever after.”  I mean, sure, things turn out great for Snow White and Cinderella, but what about all the dwarves and wicked stepsisters they leave behind? (Not to mention the helpful little singing animals that helped them get together with the Prince in the first place!)  Doesn’t anybody but me wonder what happened to all of THEM at the end of the story?  

That’s why I’m writing 2 U.  To tell you the end of OUR story.  Libby married David, of course, but that wasn’t the end.  Getting married in the temple is only the BEGINNING of an “ever after” love story.  (But you don’t need me 2 tell you that!)  The whole town came 2 the sealing, but the people who worked at the temple didn’t have as much fun as we did.  One reason is because they’re uptight about people wading in their little pools.  (It was Guy’s idea.  His new shoes were hot and they pinched his toes besides.)  And they don’t like people shimmying up their palm trees, either.  (Tansy said I couldn’t do it and I said I could and I DID.)  And let me tell you one more thing they don’t like: they don’t like people trying to get juice out of their barrel cactus!  (Real Native Americans do that kind of thing all the time, Homer says, but we think now that they probably don’t do it at the Arizona Temple.)  I can tell you one thing about those temple people, though: they’re darn nice.  Even when their faces are so red above their white jackets that you think they’re going to have a coronary and fall down dead, they STILL use quiet, polite church voices to tell you off.  

Where was I?  Oh, yeah.  Libby married David - like I said - and then we all went to a big reception back at the church in Amen.  There was LOTS of food, but I didn’t touch the Swedish meatballs.  (LaDonna made them and so you don’t know what’s in them.  There might be somebody missing from Sweden at this very moment for all I know.)  We were all glad 2 hear LaRae’s announcement that she is going away 2 study hot cruising (Libby says it is “haute cuisine”) at a cooking school down in Tucson.  That place is at least 150 miles from here, so we won’t be able 2 smell her cooking even when the wind shifts.  Whew!  

I am sad 2 report 2 U that even after the honeymoon David is not going 2 go back 2 being an international spy or even a death-defying astronaut.  He is going 2 stay in Amen and be boring.  (I think Libby is putting him up 2 it.)  He will be principal of Alma School next year when Max retires.  I’ll really like having David around, of course (he’ll always be my HERO), but you have to admit that being a principal is not very EXCITING.  

Speaking of outer space, I am devoting my summer vacation 2 helping Estelle figure out how 2 persuade the ten tribes 2 return 2 earth.  It is 2 bad that all the ruckus that night scared them away.  Wouldn’t you think they’d be nervier, what with traveling all the way across the galaxy and all?  That’s what I thought, but Estelle says we shouldn’t judge our brethren and sisterern (sp?) until we’ve been lost in space a few centuries ourselves.  I guess she’s right about that.  Libby is helping Estelle, 2.  She is taking her share of the money from selling our company and giving it 2 a university so they can build a great big observatory out in the middle of the desert - where it’s real, real dark and quiet - and name the place after Estelle!  

But back 2 the “stepsisters and dwarves” I was going 2 tell you about.  Leonard and Frank (the wicked stepsisters) are going 2 prison.  I think they should be sent 2 a deep, dank dungeon full of man-eating rats, but David says that the United States of America doesn’t have any deep, dank dungeons - and he probably researched the subject since he thought once that he and Libby would probably end up there!  But he said he “agrees with me in theory” and that he’d “see what he could do” about getting one of this friends at the CIA 2 smuggle a few man-eating rats in2 Frank’s cell.  (I am hopeful.  Those guys at the CIA can do ANYTHING!)  

My mother (Geneva) isn’t going 2 have 2 be in prison for very long, and it’s not the same kind of prison at all.  (No rats anywhere!)  She lives in a place where we can write and visit and talk on the phone.  Geneva (my mother) is sorry for not telling what she knew sooner, and says that this time in her life is a “blessing in disguise.”  She is going 2 go 2 school, and when she is finished she wants 2 BE something - maybe a doctor.  She says she always wanted 2 be a doctor.   

I guess that fills you in on everybody but the “helpful little singing animals” and we didn’t have any of those in our story - unless you count Calliopee (sp?) and the bats.  (They’re fine.  I promise.)  So, I guess I’ve told you about everybody.  

What I’m trying to say here is: Even though our story didn’t end with the words “And they lived happily ever after” everybody is doing it anyway.  And we hope that YOU are too!  After all, YOUR story is just as fun and exciting as ours is, and “happy” is what you deserve for ALL your “ever afters!”  

LUV U 4-EVER

Chillygator