Please send me some information about your
state as I am studying it in school.
This was essentially the content of the letter I wrote
to dozens of state capitals when I was in 5th grade (around 1966-67).
It was not technically true that the St Luke School curriculum included any
particular focus on one state or another. I just somehow discovered that such a
letter would generate a variety of cool stuff via the U. S. Mail. I was just
thrilled at the activity generated. I would get books on tourism, copies of
state constitutions, stickers, state flags, maps, premium items and lots of
other fun stuff in response. It doesn’t take much to impress a pre-teen in the
mail, I guess.
In any event, I was well prepared for a school
assignment that was to be about a state of our choice. The assignment coincided
with the week of my maternal grandmother’s wake. Mom was determined to honor
her mom with an Irish style celebration of life at our house on Edgewater
Drive. So. Guests arrived in our living room as I positioned my collection of
facts and images for a graphically outstanding presentation of our 49th
state with a nice map showing the locations of the state capital (Juneau) and
Alaska’s biggest city (Anchorage).
The readers of my report would be treated to bonus
information on the state flower (Forget-me-not) and amazing facts about the
Kodiak bear (the unique subspecies of a brown or Grizzly bear).
Grammy Lawton lived with us at the end of her life and suffered from dementia but she has a light that still shown in my mother’s eyes as she greeted people from the community ranging from Lakewood Little Theater (now the Beck Center) and Morgan Studio (dad’s business founded in 1951) and lifelong friends (some of whom may have attended the wedding of Mr. and Mrs. Morgan at St, James in Lakewood on December 19, 1942).
