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| 26 February 1993 |
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| Cheryl B. Horton 6420 Orleans Avenue New Orleans, LA 70124 |
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| Re: Current Events |
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| Dear Cheri: |
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| CONFUCIUS SAID: "THE CAUTIOUS SELDOM ERR" |
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| This week I lunched with the New York Times at the Chinese restaurant around the corner from my office. The name of the establishment is Chinese Restaurant. I had Special #1, Kung Pao Combo with egg roll. Not exactly Mr. Kai's of Mayfair, but a bargain at $3.95. |
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| Shortly after placing in front of me a plate piled high with MSG-laced starches and minuscule slivers of beef and pork, the waitress put down a little tray containing the check and a fortune cookie. |
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| The fortune cookie might be what I liked best about Chinese food. I cracked it open, shoved half of it into my pie-hole and read my fortune. It did not foretell, as I had hoped: YOU WILL WIN THE $10,000,000 LOTTO THIS WEEK. Instead, the message warned: YOU ARE THE CENTER OF EVERY GROUP'S ATTENTION. |
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| I do not need nor do I want to be the center of every group's attention. And I certainly do not need such distressing news when my heart rate already is elevated by a white crystalline powder -- monosodium glutamate.
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| Last year I was audited by the I.R.S. and imagined I was the center of attention of each G-man employed by the Service. It was not pleasant. The examiner could not have been nicer, but the three weeks leading up to my appointment were hell. |
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| In seventh grade, during Brother Eric's math lesson, a classmate handed me a book marked with a picture of a bikini-clad woman. I had a good snicker. As I passed it back to him, the bookmark fell out and fluttered to the floor at Brother
Eric's feet. Poof! Instantly transformed into the epicenter of attention of Earthquake Eric and a gaggle of twelve-year-olds.
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| Michael Jackson doesn't even want to be the focus of every group's attention. Who does? Ask Mr. Rushdie about the limelight. |
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| I do not mind Denise doting on me or Sasha slobbering on me, and it feels great to shine in a courtroom. Beyond that, if I must be scrutinized by a group, let it be the Lotto's promotional people asking me to jump up and down on the telly with a giant-sized check. |
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| In the future, to be cautious, I plan on sliding the check from beneath the folded lump of sugary dough, which will remain unopened on the little tray. |
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| HAIL THOTH! |
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| For the expressed purpose of celebrating our standing at curbside for an hour and screaming for weighty trinkets to be hurled at us from tractor-drawn papier-mache wagons -- hurled by drunks blinded by booze and the ill-cut peepholes of plastic masks -- Denise and I had a few friends over last Sunday morning and drank for twelve and a half hours.
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| But I'm not telling you anything. You were there -- not quite the first there, but decidedly the last. |
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| On hand at the shindig, inter alia, were two Denises, two Julias, two Davids, two Paul Cordeses, and one Esme. What do you suppose are the odds of that? There were also to be two Adriennes (three if you count Adrian C.), but only one showed.
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| Denise (my wife, not John Whitney's friend) tried, for the first time, a newspaper recipe for pasta salad. She got it very right. |
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| Julia (Russ Ramsey's lovely daughter, not my lovely niece) has a crush on young Paul Cordes or his brother Mark, or maybe both. Childhood allows for fast friends to be made in the course of a game. Their game: Let's ravage the banana trees and then whip people with the branches we have ripped from the stalks. |
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| David (your son, the one who spent all day in the porch swing with Esme, not yours truly) was as quiet as I have ever seen him. I know David will read this, so I've included a poem: |
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| SPRINGFEVER |
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| The birds singing, The flowers blooming, Hints of springtime all round. |
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| A look, a smile, A laugh, a caress, Hints of springtime abound. |
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| David and Esme sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G First comes love, Next comes marriage, Then comes David pushing a baby carriage. |
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| Paul Cordes (the one who doesn't have a crush on Julia Ramsey, I think), testing the limits of the innate trust between father and son, convinced his two sons to tolerate Sasha. No ordinary feat considering Sasha carries her toothy head at about their eye level, and she outweighs them each by thirty or forty pounds. |
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| Esme (the mysterious honey-colored one, no other) swung the day away listening to the songs of the mockingbird and watching the gentle bees work the flowers of the cherry laurel tree. |
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| More Later, |
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| David J. L'Hoste |
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| DJL/djl |
| cc: Bernard A. Horton Russell B. Ramsey Denise F. L'Hoste Paul D. Cordes Adrian C. Benjamin, Jr. Julie Yoedicke |