Many years ago (1986, to be exact) I created a family newsletter called “The BBB” for my family: my mom and dad, my siblings and me and our spouses. The idea was to send one out every other month, but in those days there was no email. I had to send the forms out by mail and wait for family members to return them to me with information, so the timing of publication was always a bit iffy. In each issue, there were updates on each family member, called “Tidbits,” answers from everyone to a particular question, called “Personal Glimpses,” an opinion section, creative contributions (drawings, quotes, cartoons), and advice columnists. Sounds fun, doesn’t it? It was!

Looking over the first issue, I see that the Personal Glimpses question was “When was the last time you had trouble falling asleep and why?” The opinion topic was: Dimples (that’s about as controversial as our family got). The four advice columnists were: Miss Prissy (etiquette questions), Dear Guinevere (relationship problems), Dr. Jekyll (health problems) and Handyman Dan (household hints). I can now disclose that all the advice columnists were just one person: my husband. Here are some sample questions and answers from Issue #2:

Dear Dr. Jekyll, How does the body work?
Dr. Jekyll says: Fine, if you feed it daily and give it plenty of sleep.

Dear Guinevere, How can you guarantee anonymity?
Dear Leslie, Not to worry, just trust me. Guinevere.

Dear Dr. Jekyll, My bones are wearing out! What should I do?
Dr. Jekyll says: Sticks and stones may break your bones but milk will never hurt you.

Dear Handyman Dan, What is a sure fire way to get a mouse to enter a trap?
Handyman Dan says: If you are having trouble with an unwanted “mouse guest” consider this: today’s house mouse is more sophisticated than those of yesteryear. No self-respecting YUMM-ie (Young Upwardly Mobile Mouse) would touch a chunk of American cheese. Try instead a chunk of bleu cheese or quiche Lorraine to whet its appetite.

After all these years, those answers still crack me up. I think he missed his calling by working as a corn breeder for so many years.

The BBB ran from August 1986 to December 1993 with only 13 issues in those seven years. It was a good run.

So now I want to give all of you, my faithful subscribers, the chance to be an advice columnist. I think my question should be addressed to Dr. Jekyll, so here it is:

Dear Dr. Jekyll: The other day my husband was looking for the brown sugar. I had used it that morning but it wasn’t in the cupboard where it belonged. We looked in all the cupboards and it wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Finally, my husband found it in the microwave. I had used it on some rice that I had microwaved and then absentmindedly stuck the brown sugar in there when I took the rice out. Is this normal behavior for a 63-year-old? How can I prevent this from happening again?

If I don’t misplace this post somewhere overnight, I’ll probably delete it in the morning.

Dungeons and Dragons – A Timeline of D&D in My Life.

1983-1984. My older sister Leslie starts playing D&D. I know nothing about it except that it’s some sort of role-playing game that she really enjoys. Her character is an elf that she named Druella, and typical of Leslie, she keeps a journal written on Druella’s behalf in the first person. She sends me copies of this journal periodically as she writes more pages. I put them all together and stick them in a file cabinet, too busy to read them and frankly, too uninterested.

1985. D&D starts to get some bad PR. There were some kids that were getting too immersed and were becoming mentally unhinged. My husband and I are engaged to be married and I am living in a house with several apartments, one of which is occupied by a young man who is very deep into D&D. I chat with him a bit about it and am alarmed at what now seems like a rather dark game. He is quiet, socially awkward, and seems to fit the stereotype blooming in my mind of the kind of person who should not be into D&D. I offer up some cautions to him, but don’t really know him well enough to go further.

1987. Leslie passes away. I still haven’t read or responded to the Druella Journals. I forget about them.

2013 or so. Our older sons started getting interested in D&D. Definitely had mixed feelings about it and not sure if it’s a good idea.

2014-2018 By now, our four older boys are all out at the same college out West. They are starting to become part of D&D groups, some of them even taking turns at being Dungeon Masters. I tell my oldest son about the bad PR from 1985 and he pooh-poohs it, telling me that he was aware of it and that D&D didn’t create the mental problems that anyone might have had. He tells me more about the game. It’s kind of intriguing. Plus, it’s a game that requires actual people doing creative things together, face to face. As opposed to video games. And it’s been a great bonding experience for the boys. I give it a tentative thumbs up in my mind.

2018. Suddenly, I remember my sister’s Druella journals. Why didn’t I ever read them? I had this wonderful part of her life just sitting there and I never bothered to read it. Leslie was a very creative person and a great writer – it will be like unearthing new treasure from her life. I race down to the file cabinet to get the journals out. They aren’t there. I look in other files. Nope. Did I give them to her son, my nephew? That seems vaguely possible. I call him. He thinks I gave them to him many years ago and will look for them. Phew! But he calls back. He can’t find them and wonders if they got lost when he moved. I asked him to look again, but he lives in a small apartment and it seems unlikely that they’ll turn up. They don’t. Every so often I look again in my files, but it’s all been in vain. This brings a surprising amount of grief.

2021. One of my sons offers to set up a short D&D game for me to try it when our family gets together in the summer. I forget to reply to the text and he assumes I’m not interested, so the opportunity passes. I’m wishing I had tried it.

2022. I find a set of 100 postcards depicting D&D art from over the years and decide to buy it to send one per week to my two oldest sons – it’s actually two identical sets of 50 postcards. The artwork is interesting and often fantastical. As I send them out, I still think I’d like to try playing the game at some point. Maybe it will happen in 2022!

Thus concludes my D&D Timeline, which was no doubt very tedious to those of you who care nothing about Dungeons and Dragons. Thank you for hanging in there.

I’ll probably delete this in the morning after looking for the Druella Journals one more time. Maybe there’s a place I haven’t checked yet!

It was my first day at the University of Minnesota. In elementary school, we had only one classroom to go to for the whole year, and had just one teacher. Then came junior high and high school, where each subject was taught in a different room with a different teacher, but we were all still in just one building with a relatively small student population. There was probably some form of registration for classes in high school, but I don’t remember it, so it must have been painless and uncomplicated. By comparison, the University of Minnesota was a huge, sprawling campus with probably around 50,000 students the year I was a freshman there. The registration process had to be done ahead of time and was fraught with confusion and frustration. But somehow I had made it through this gauntlet and the great day had come. I had entered into the great halls of learning and had even found the building for my first class, English Composition. I sank into my chair with a sigh of relief.

The teacher asked for our registration cards, which we dutifully handed in. She looked them over and remarked that one of them didn’t have a name on it, so she asked us which one of us had turned in a card without a name. Silence. She sighed and said, “Well, I guess I’m going to have to read out the name on each card to find out which one of your names is missing.” She began reading out the names and the guy sitting next to me looked at me, rolled his eyes and said with scorn, “Freshmen!” I laughed, as if in agreement, but was acutely aware that I was one of those reviled beings. The parade of names continued and I began to wonder if it was possible that mine was the card in question. Weren’t our names already printed on the card? I hadn’t looked at mine very carefully. The names went on and mine still wasn’t called. I was filled with a sudden dread. It was mine, it had to be mine. She finished. I raised my hand to claim the card. All eyes were on me, particularly that guy next to me, who rolled his eyes again and smirked. That was how I found out that we were expected to put our names on our registration cards. That was how my college career began with a moment of public mortification.

Me: I think I’m supposed to delete this in the morning.
Readers: *eye roll* *smirk*

I think photographs can be as eloquent as words, capturing a moment that causes us to pause and think. These are some of my latest, all taken within a 5 minute period. Here’s a thought experiment: if each of these photos graced the cover of a book, what would the book title be? What would the story be about? In case some of you are inspired to reply in the comments section with your suggestions, I’ll number these so you can refer to them that way. I’d love to see what you come up with!

For photo number 4, I choose the book title: I’ll Probably Delete This In The Morning. Now it’s your turn!