Greetings friend, oh long lost friend! Hail and howdy! Thank you oh most generous one for the Christmas book from the Land o’ Bloom. I was verily stricken when I learned of the demise of Bloom. Here had been created the most perfect place for characters in search of a cartoonist. I feel that Berke Breathed had a moral obligation to sustain the Land o’ Bloom. Just as I am obligated to nurture Nicole and Danny through life, so Breathed is so obliged. He should be jailed for cartoon strip abandonment.

But the children do not know of my loss. So I will bury my pain deep in my chest, and read them this Christmas story, much to their delight. They will not miss the ducks that sat on Gramps head. “Ack!” will not ring in their ears. They will not yearn for the innocence of Milo’s Meadow- a Walden’s Pond hidden in the funnies.

We haven’t read the book yet. We read slow. About 30 minutes is all they can take before bed time. And I only work in 1 or 2 readings a week. We’ve been reading The Hobbit for the past 9 months. You see, little kids like to ask you lots of questions and interrupt your reading. Used to bug me. Then I read or heard somewhere that getting to the end of the book is not what is important. Hard thing to realize for a guy with an English Lit Major.

They also like to act out some of the better scenes. One of their great performances was when Bilbo (Danny) fought off a giant spider (Nicole), escaping from its web (Nicole’s jump rope.) Danny likes any scene where he can use his plastic sword.

The best scene was just about a week ago when Bilbo (Danny again) snuck down the secret tunnel to Smaug’s (Nicole’s) lair. A red light bulb provided the red glow as described emanating from Smaug.

Coming to you, by the way, on a Macintosh PowerBook 100. This little lap top is a full-blown Mac in a small package. Great machine! Watching candid camera here at 11:30 pm, and I need to head off to bed. No bed time stories tonight.