I'm still going through drawers and boxes and files in the great purge of my workroom and at some point, this folded bit of paper did, indeed, flutter to the floor. Dear Mrs. Skemp, it said ( my married name, remember, and the one I was known by when I taught English at Berkeley Prep in Tampa many long years ago.) Someday when this flutters to the floor and you pick it up to read it, remember me and return it to the book to flutter down again to be reminded again.
I want you to know you were an inspiring and delightful teacher.
May 1968,
Robert Franckle
A Romantic and Adventurer
I'd forgotten this note but not Robert -- a member of my senior English class, who, as I recall, loved to go fishing in Tampa Bay more than anything. Really, one of the sweetest guys you could imagine. That was my last year at Berkeley. John and I left to go to Iowa where John entered grad school A year later we ran into Franckle (as he was called) in London on the last day of our great motorcycle adventure. It was a brief and joyous reunion and I've never seen him since.
I had a look for him just now on the Internet and he seems to be still in the Tampa Bay area -- I hope he's still fishing, I hope he's still a Romantic and an Adventurer. And I wish I could tell him how welcome and heartwarming his note was in the midst of a dreary, tedious task. I'll put it back so that I may have the joy of being delighted by it all over again.
