First of the autographs
Fri Jan 07, 2005 18:39 (UTC -5)I was eager to check the mail today. Last Monday, if you’ll recall, I sent letters and dollar bills to former Treasurers and Secretaries of the Treasury with hopes that I’d get the bills back autographed above each person’s facsimile signature that appears on the note.
Anyway, today I got the first ones back. They were three crisp sequential Series 1974 $1 notes that I had sent to Francine I. Neff, who served as U.S. Treasurer from 1974 to 1977. The bills returned slightly bent but otherwise crisp. Ms. Neff honored my request for her to make out one of the autographs to me. She spelled my first name wrong (the usual Jordan instead of Jordon), but it’s hard to notice. (I still find it amazing that no one can spell my first name, but my last name — Kalilich — seems to be no problem.)
The other letter for me was one I had sent to Mary Ellen Withrow (Treasurer, 1994-2001), but this one was in the original envelope. They wrote upon it, “Return to Sender, Address Unknown, No Such Number, No Such Zone…” Or, uh, something along that line. Even though it was a nixie, I’m not too disheartened because (a) at least the bills didn’t get lost in the mail and (b) I’ve found a more recent address of hers, which hopefully will work. Withrow is a prolific signer and purportedly never turns down a request for an autograph.
And for more backstory, in October I registered to take Health class online, not only to avoid the teacher (who absolutely nobody likes) , but also to catch up in math. Apparently I was recently sent an e-mail saying that the class was about to start, but I never got it. Thank God my sister did, or I wouldn’t have known.
Anyway, Mrs. Grabelsky, our future teacher, called yesterday to let us know what this was all about and everything. It doesn’t seem too hard. We’re expected to have at least five to seven hours a week to dedicate to taking the class, and that works out to 43 minutes to an hour each day. But the several assignments given each week are due each Monday, and since my school has all Fridays off (and I suddenly have more free time on that day of the week), it’ll be a piece of cake. Wait, this is Health class. Piece of celery. Eww.
Well, one of my friends has done it and he says it’s easy. And if it’s torture on my oh-so-busy schedule, then at least I’ll have my sister and some of my friends to cry with, because they’re taking the same class online too.
“Making Canada a Warmer Place,” it’s Canadians for a Tropical Province! This is apparently a group of Canadians who think that annexing a tropical island will help Canada’s tourism industry. I think it’s a good idea, even though I’m not Canadian. It would just mean fewer Canadians running around down here in Florida (and trust me, there are a lot). CFATP hopes that the majority of Canadians will approve of the idea in a national referendum.
