Friday

June 17, 1983   

 Grandpa and I sat at his dining room table.  Although I was still as can be, I was writing today’s journal entry in my head.   

“Are you still writing?” asked Grandpa.

“Yesireebob,” I answered.  “How could you tell?”   

“I’m still writing too,” he replied as his glass looked inside me to see what writing I would pull from my head and place on the page of my journal.  I took my notebook out of my backpack and wrote: June 17, 1983.   Grandpa and I are both surrounded by all of his favorite photographs.  Every face in every photograph is as curious as he.   

“I noticed you’ve been writing more regular,” Grandpa said.  “How’s the diary coming?”   

I looked around the table at Grandpa and his old photographs.  “For everybody’s information I am not writing a diary.”  

Grandpa reached over and flipped my notebook to the front cover.  I had written in big black letters the name of my Writing Journal.

    REMEMBER EVERYTHING

1983   

“It sure looks like a diary from where I sit,” Grandpa said as he sat back down.   

“It’s a Writing Journal,” I replied.   “Starting in September, all the middle schoolers in East Lansing have to keep a Writing Journal.  I’m just getting a head start.”  I wanted to say more.    

Grandpa smiled.  “Call it whatever.  I’m just glad to see you get organized. You got the family writing bug, Soldier.  You inherited it from good old Grandpa.”   

I smiled back.  "Do I have another grandpa?  Or are you the one spreading all these writing germs?"      

Grandpa paused as if to say something...but instead simply something else, “Writing connects us.”     

I pretty much feel the same way.  There's little in his world that reminds me of me except his daily diary.  I guess he said what I always wanted to say. 

“All writers are connected…you, me, the Apostles, Melville, Thoreau, Twain, Frost…we’re all connected,” he said.   

That’s not exactly what I have been wanting to say.   

“I’ll bet it feels good to be connected,” Grandpa said.   

I smiled and admitted to him and every curious face staring at me from their frames, “Yesireebob…it feels good to be connected.”