Letters

All you youngsters may be waaaay too young to remember who Perry Como was, but he had a popular television program that we watched in the 1950s and very early 60s. One segment was devoted to singing songs requested in letters by his fans. I still remember the opening line of the song that introduced that segment: "Letters, we get letters..."

Well, today we hardly get letters at all. E-mail does for that. Except Kristin and Vince (mostly Kristin, I suspect) are very good about sending cards for just about every occasion. (Thanks for the Valentine, by the way.)

But even though I don't get many personal letters, I regularly read the Letters to the Editor columns in the local papers. Amazingly, the Baraboo paper has had several days with no letters at all of late. Must be the winter weather, but I would have thought being cooped up inside would have inspired even more letters from some of the more colorful and cranky people who frequently write the papers.

Today is one of the days when the Baraboo News Republic has no letters. On the other hand, the Wisconsin Dells Events -- which only comes out a couple of times a week -- had a letter from a Dr. Kenneth L. Russell, who is identified as a "professor orf education, emeritus, Sam Houston State University."

The letter is a long reflection on the problems with the economy, but I was more intrigued by its author, of course. Daddy and Ted are both graduates of Sam Houston and Mama took some courses there, as I recall. In Huntsville, just about everyone who wasn't connected to the Department of Corrections was connected to Sam Houston in some way.

The letter had no indication of where the writer lived, unlike almost all the other letters in the local papers. So I went to the telephone directory to see if Dr. Russell may have somehow wound up here in The Waterpark Capital of the World. Finding no one of the name listed (although there is a gentleman with a similar name in Friendship, up in Adamas County), I googled him. Apparently he is about 98 years old and still lives in Huntsville. He and his late wife of 72 years (there's a goal for Mama and Daddy to aim for!) founded the Universal Ethician Church, which describes itself thus:

The Universal Ethician Church is a worldwide interfaith-ecumenical church tasked by the one and only God of the Universe with protecting Creation from destruction due to the unparalleled escalation of human greed and ignorance which is destroying God's biosphere.

Its further mission is one of bringing peace and joy to the world by instilling in all of God's children, a deep respect for one another based on The Golden Rule of the New Millennium.

Please join us in the critical mission of defeating the greatest threat to ever face Planet Eden since the beginning of human history.

Unless we, God's children, join together in a common bond of love and respect for each other and respect for God by preserving and protecting all Creation, we will continue down the path to the final destruction of the very life-support systems which God has so generously loaned each successive generation until the complete self-induced collective suicide of the human species takes place.

Part of their project is establishing Ethician Cemeteries (there is one in Huntsville apparently) where you are buried very simply, without embalming or any coffin at all. They are described as "green cemeteries" invoking the Biblical injunction of "from dust to dust."

You just never know what will come in the mail, do you?