Dear Pearl,

Thank you, Dear, for sending me the poem about the lanyard. I feel we don't see enough poems about lanyards and I shall treasure this one forever. One can certainly appreciate how relieved the author felt to have discharged his debt to his mother for once and for all!

Please say you will try to come for a visit soon. Melba is due back this weekend and she misses you so. She says she is bringing some visitors with her. Circus performers, I think she said. Louise has stocked the kitchen with enough herring to feed an army, and all of us have been running to and fro, shaking salt into the pool to make it more comfortable for our guest of honor who apparently wishes to be reminded of his ocean home.

Until I See You Again I Remain,
Your Devoted Miss Blue

The Lanyard, a poem by Billy Collins

The other day I was ricocheting slowly off the blue walls of this room, moving as if underwater from typewriter to piano, from bookshelf to an envelope lying on the floor, when I found myself in the L section of the dictionary
where my eyes fell upon the word

lanyard.


No cookie nibbled by a French novelist could send one into the past more suddenly—a past where I sat at a workbench at a camp by a deep Adirondack lake learning how to braid long thin plastic strips into a lanyard, a gift for my mother. I had never seen anyone use a lanyard or wear one, if that’s what you did with them, but that did not keep me from crossing strand over strand again and again until I had made a boxy red and white lanyard

for my mother.


She gave me life and milk from her breasts, and I gave her a lanyard. She nursed me in many a sick room, lifted spoons of medicine to my lips, laid cold face-cloths on my forehead, and then led me out into the airy light and taught me to walk and swim, and I, in turn, presented her with a lanyard.

Here are thousands of meals, she said, and here is clothing and a good education. And here is your lanyard, I replied, which I made with a little help from a counselor.


Here is a breathing body and a beating heart, strong legs, bones and teeth, and two clear eyes to read the world, she whispered, and here, I said, is the lanyard I made at camp.

And here, I wish to say to her now, is a smaller gift—not the worn truth that you can never repay your mother, but the rueful admission that when she took the two-tone lanyard from my hand, I was as sure as a boy could be that this useless, worthless thing I wove out of boredom
would be enough
to make us even.

Dear Miss Blue,
I see from my porch window that The Hunter Cat and my favorite Crow (Frederick, by name) are at it again. Never have I seen such fierce competition. The air is filled with Frederick's brassy sound (he did, at one time, caw with the boys choir in Motown). They are enemies by nature, of course, but I will say the Hunter Cat gobbled up a newborn crowlet that had fallen from the nest in the Fir Tree last summer and Frederick has been on the proverbial War Path ever since. History is so unforgiving, Miss Blue.
The snow makes a fine cover for the Hunter Cat, HC being mostly white with the exception of three of his paws and a spot on his face right there by his whiskers. Both creatures are handsome for their species, I will say that. But, Miss Blue, how will it all end? I have found an old lanyard out in the boathouse, and that, along with a small dinner bell left over from playtime with the Bobbsey Twins last summer, will do just fine to alert Frederick to a serious encounter. The Hunter Cat is in view as I write, so I shall close this letter to you quickly, Miss Blue. I have the collar and bell in my pocket and I am sure Mr Cat will wear it stylishly. He is just so spoiled!

Love,
Pearl, solving

Dear Pearl,

Your parade route is perfectly regal, Pearl!  And the idea of serving hors doevres as you advance down the way? Brilliant! Let them eat cake!

The hubbub in our household is quieting. Fanny didn't actually grow any new cartilage or even send away for Professor Minges' samples. She was just helping out a friend, she said. And she was rather angry that Louise had been going through her things. I have assured her that I will speak to Louise straightaway about respecting other people's privacy. And I told her I thought she was very kind indeed to be a helper to a friend. The Golden Rule and so forth.

I simply must scamper off to the rest of my day, Pearl, as Franco is waiting for me at the curb. But I will write again soon.

I Remain, As Always, Your Devoted Miss Blue

Dear Miss Blue,

So Professor Minges is at it again! A sure sign of devious advertising, of course. A flim flam man preying on the smaller persons. Remember what happened to Alice! So out of proportion in size after eating and drinking with no supervision at all! I have no other comments, Miss Blue. My ears are burning and that must be a sign of cartilage suffocation.

I have been notified that the palanquin has arrived at the train station this very day! I'm hoping I will be able to store it in my large storage closet in the garage until I can organize my people who will be transporting me through the streets here in the village. After several phone calls, I have arranged a route most likely to stun and delight the populace. Gaiety and music, food and speeches, interspersed with the Message - SLOWER CARS FOR AMERICA - will bring me the results I am after. I plan to serve the Onion and Black Olive Pie on tiny paper plates to the folks reaching out to me. I just shiver at the thought of it all.

When will Melba settle down, do you know? I worry about these things.

Pearl Taking Care of Business

Pearl,

We're worried sick about Fanny! Louise found this advertisement tucked under her dancing tights when she was straightening her sock drawer. It's all about cartilage! Pearl, isn't cartilage something that grows in the naked body? Where did a well brought up child like our own Fanny ever come in contact with such filth? Oh Melba! See what happens when a mother succumbs to the evils of spirits? I'm frantic, Dear. Please say all this will turn out happily. You are so wise about the world.

I Remain Your Devoted Miss Blue

Dearest Pearl,

I shall send it off to you directly, Dear. Franco will be delighted to have more room in the garage. He has been pestering me to sort through the storage areas on the estate since Christmas. They are simply packed with lovely old things from my travels.

And how marvelous that you know of Mandalay. Few remember how charming a place it was before its terrible troubles began. I lived among the natives there for a bit. They loved me for my cultured ways. I taught them how to pick lint off socks and soak prunes in Armagnac for a special treat. Poor savages that they were, they were unable to teach me much in return. Even their beloved ostriches were hopelessly backward and unable to fly. My houseboy could make them run like the wind though. He was a darling lad. For a native, I mean.

I Remain Your Devoted Miss Blue

Dear Miss Blue,

How perfectly astounding to hear that you have a palanquin stored in the garage alongside the St Pearl Classic and other such ingenious things of importance. Yes I would love to borrow the palanquin. Will you be able to have it packed up and shipped to me here in the Village?  I am sure I will be able to engage the Village natives (never would I ask their voting preferences) to carry me in it. They will fall in love with the Message - SLOWER CARS FOR AMERICA - especially when I lean out of the prettily curtained window and sing in my wonderful throaty alto voice. I shall sing a familiar tune, On the Road to Mandalay, made famous all over the world when sung by Frank S. (Rudyard Kipling wrote the lyrics) and bound to send everyone into a determined marching mode.

With loving breath abated, Pearl

Dear Pearl,

I was so glad to hear from you at last, Pearl. Please do be more careful about exposing yourself to the hoi polloi. They are notoriously unclean and contagious. It is time for you to roll up your sleeves and jump into the fray with the SLOWER CARS FOR AMERICA campaign. Perhaps a small tour of the Midwest in the St. Pearl Classic spreading your charm and warmth along the way. Why, you might even think of traveling in my old palanquin. They've become quite popular with all this blather about global warming and carbon footprints. I don't understand that and I don't care about that. All I know is you would look majestic carried upon the shoulders of volunteer citizens, waving from time to time to a particularly earnest looking member of the madding crowd. And too high above them all to exchange handshakes. Isn't that the beauty of it?

I Remain Your Devoted Miss Blue

My Dear Miss Blue,

You say his name is Franco: how trickily subtle of you, Miss Blue. The name, Franco, of spaghetti fame, my sources tell me, comes from the French, that being common knowledge.I have always thought of the spaghetti, Franco-American, as an unlikely competitor for the Real Italian Pasta. My father, GJB, of Real Italian Fame, scoffed at the can of Franco-American spaghetti our mother served when we gathered to Eat Italian Style, without Rolls, without Caesar Salad, without Red Wine. Soooooo Franco-American Orange in appearance. I agreed with his scoffing then and now, in retrospect, I feel his pain.

Write to me soon; I have had such a dreary time with the illness brought on by the riff raff coming into the building. I am initiating a new ruling, to be presented to the Board: Certificates of Wellness (COW's) issued only after being checked by an electronic eye to be installed at the front entrance. That should take care of the problem as I see it. I only hope the crowds there in Iowa and New Hampshire are covering their coughs and washing up after every handshake.

Love, Pearl