"Happy birthday, dear dad, grandpa, etc.....happy birthday to you!" Then, there was clapping and cheering and that was my cue to blow out the candles on my cake. It's funny how you go through life though, isn't it? It started out as just plain old, "Happy birthday, Theodore," and now, I'm uncle, dad, grandpa, etc.... everyone wishing me their best in the way they have come to know me.

I met her the night before I was to go to boot camp and have the young me prepared to fight in what came to be known as World War II. I was never very good with the ladies, so I kept the eye contact, as well as the conversation, down to a minimum. We both went home that night from the soda shop, her to work the next day and me to be transformed into a fighting man.

It was the third or fourth week of boot camp when I received a letter from a girl whose name I did not recognize. At first I thought it was a joke. As I unfurled the letter, a picture fell to the ground. It was the girl I had met the night before I left, Margaret Rishan according to her letter, her friends called her Maggie. She ended the letter, and every letter she ever wrote to me after that, "when I see you again...and I will see you again, I'd like do it again if possible, I had fun that night."

Fun? Fun with the minimal eye contact and anti-conversational king? I had to chuckle at that. I then studied the picture with greater interest. I was amazed to find that the most beautiful woman I had ever seen had just written me a letter. Since I don't have to look her in the eye or actually talk to her, what the hell, I'll write back, and so I did, as often as I could and she faithfully answered each one.

I would re-read the latest installment from Margaret Rishan until a new one arrived, all the while praying that it would be soon. I would gently run my fingers across the words that she took the time to write to me, across the very same paper Margaret touched and stroked during the composition of the letter.

I must admit, there is no greater keepsake for me than those handwritten letters. Knowing that she had taken the time to pour out her feelings onto a piece of neatly

pressed stationery meant something, it had feeling.

I would admire the slope of her handwriting and how it got erratic when she was mad or how it got a little sloppy when she was tired. She would always add after a transformation to poor penmanship, "I'm afraid I must say farewell for now. I'm very tired." The truth is she didn't have to say she was tired, I knew she was tired from her words. I felt her "being tired" as I read the handwritten message. The letters not as legible, closing, just as Margaret's eyes soon would in sleep.

I still could not believe that Margaret, Margaret Rishan, Margaret of my heart, was writing to me, Theodore, Theodore the minimal conversationalist! She, with pen in hand, like a sword, fighting off sleep for as long as she could until she had to rest. My dearest Margaret. Click here to continue on next page

I blew out the candles on the cake. The smoke had barely cleared the candles when the place erupted with the loudest applause of the day. You would think I had jumped the grand canyon on a motorcycle the way they reacted. I merely blew out the candles on my cake.

If there were a candle for each year, that would be just cause for such applause, and if I had done it in one breath, a cue to call 911 (999 in Scotland). However, such was not the case, there were just two candles, an eight and a zero (eighty).

With the smoke still rising, my daughter said, "happy birthday, daddy, muah," my grandson, "happy birthday, grandpa," another kiss. I didn't know which way to turn; I was gripped in head-lock after head-lock and received kiss after kiss and posed for picture after picture. The flashes going off were almost blinding. Yes--I can still see, quite well actually. Little does everyone know that this very thing, a picture, a picture in a letter actually, is what just might be responsible for almost everyone here today.