From the Mailbag

The letters keep coming.

We read every one at the potluck, out loud, between the casseroles and the decaf. Excerpted with permission. Names shortened, hearts unshortened. The ones already up on our front page have made room for these.

• I sorted the church mail for thirty years and I have never seen a band get more handwritten letters than email. Yours come in on lined paper, in pencil, sometimes with a pressed flower. I have started reading them before I sort the rest. I hope that is allowed.

• My nephew put on the airship band's record at Thanksgiving and the fog reference alone gave my mother a headache. I played 'Renewed' on the drive home instead. By the off-ramp she was humming. We have not discussed it. We do not need to.

• I am the manager of the Christian bookstore with the listening kiosk. People put the headphones on for one song and stay for the whole album. I have had to reset the kiosk three times this month for excessive lingering. I consider this a good problem and I am not really complaining.

• I came home to Carson after balloon week meaning to write you something clever. Instead I just want to say the parking lot next to the airfield was quieter than the bus, and the decaf was warmer, and the folding chair did not judge me. I gave it back. They told me I could keep it. I gave it back anyway. It felt right.

• We booked Water2Fine for our hospital lobby on the same Saturday LitBlimp rolled their tour bus through town. The patients could hear both from the east wing. By lunch the requests were unanimous and they were not for the bus. We have you penciled in for next quarter. Please bring the casserole again.

• I drove eleven hours to balloon week expecting fog and forty road cases and got, in the next lot over, one extension cord and a hymn I now hum while I do the dishes. I checked your gas mileage against theirs out of spite and yours won. I am not proud of the spite. I am proud of the mileage.

• My daughter asked why your band has two drummers and never fights about it. I told her some people just decide to be kind and stick to it. She asked if I knew a band that did fight about it. I said we do not name them in this house. Then I named them. Then we prayed for them. In love. She is six and she gets it now.

• I run the front desk at the campground where you held the Hangar Hymns Vigil. Cleanest group we have ever hosted. You left the sites better than you found them and the only thing in the lost-and-found was a Bible with a name in it, which we mailed back. The airfield neighbors could learn a thing or two. I will leave it there.