A couple of days ago I went out to the mail box to collect my daily dose of junk mail, bills and credit card offers only to find something completely unexpected: a real, live letter from our great friend David Braly. The fun part of it was that it included a photograph of the “Field Special” taken in January of 2001. The Field Special is a “salad” of sorts that is a long-standing tradition of the Marshall Field’s Restaurant that USED to be located on the top floor of the downtown department store. I honestly am not sure if the restaurant is still there since I have not been back since the store was purchased by Macy’s in 2005. At any rate David’s short note reminded me of the great fun we had during that time when he and spent a couple of weeks working in my Chicago studio. This was about the moment the David decided to transition his life from full-time teacher to that of full-time artist, and I in fact was transitioning to that of full-time teaching. The other little tidbit that his letter caused me to remember was the decision that I made when we relocated to Chicago: write a letter every day. I made it about a month and a half, and only stopped when I began to get complaints from the recipients. It seems that the receipt of a hand-written letter puts quite a bit of undue pressure on the recipient to respond in kind, especially after they receive the second or third corespondence. As for me? I think I will write a letter today. Anybody know where I can ge a stamp?