28/ Authors' Letters

I think it started with Cleveland Amory. More accurately, it started with me rescuing a little Elegant Slider turtle from a tank full of opaque green water at a pet store in New Jersey around 1970. He was so beautiful, and I wanted to give him his freedom. So my husband and three stepdaughters and I took the boat onto the big lake, and set the turtle free in the shallows. We sang "Born Free" as we watched him swim away.

(Much later I learned it wasn't a good idea to do this, as you risk exposing the lake to salmonella, but oh, well.)

I felt good about my good deed, and wanted to do more. So I wrote to Cleveland Amory, then head of The Fund For Animals, and asked what I could do for the cause. He sent back a long, handwritten letter. We lived in NJ then, and he put me in touch with a true animal activist. The next thing I knew, I was in Trenton protesting steel leg-hold traps, grateful to Cleveland.

After that there were a number of letters to and from authors. When my kids were old enough, they wrote too. The results were usually thrilling, but not always. When Gillian told Thor Heyerdahl she wanted to save the environment, he basically said, "Don't bother."

For me, one standout was Norman Cousins. We became pen pals for a time before he died, and on more than one occasion I've put to good use the advice he gave me to lighten the atmosphere in the room when a heart test is being performed. He was great. Another good experience that still rewards me is my friendship with Nancy Thayer. When I read her first novel, Stepping, my letter to her said, "Thank you for writing the story of my life." Like Nancy, I had stepdaughters, and I related to so much of the book. When she wrote back I learned she and I were the same age, and our "stepping" experiences were similar. We were pen pals for a lot of years, and now we're friends on Facebook.

I'm too tired tonight to try for three more book posts, but this seems a good way to end the month. It was a good month.