I recently finished reading your book, and I felt compelled to write you.  I wanted to let you know that I did enjoy reading it.  It was a nice read, and I almost felt as if I were there with you on the banks of the river.  I don't get to read as much as I would like anymore.  My three girls keep me busy, and my husband is deployed to the Middle East.  Perhaps when we come home to Salt Rock to visit later this winter, we'll stop by to get you to sign my book.

I also wanted to tell you that I am glad that I had you for a teacher seventeen years ago.  You taught me more than I realized until much later on in my life.  I have moved away from West Virginia--now calling Mannheim, Germany home, but I sometimes long for that peaceful life I had growing up.  I know that I can never recapture that simple life from long ago.  I do wish, however, that I, too, had captured some memories from loved ones on paper.

I am still in college--LSU to be exact.  I eventually want to teach, but I don't know for sure exactly what subject.  I love history, and being here in Europe has helped me to really explore the subject in depth.  I have visited the concentration camps in France and Dachau, and I have seen the mountains in Garmisch.  I have also seen the long white lines of the tombstones in the national cemeteries.

Even though I had a nice childhood there in Salt Rock, I am glad that my children have a different life experience than I did.  I was teased a lot for being different, and now my children go to a school where there are so many different races, creeds, cultures, and religions.  My oldest speaks Spanish and English, and my two younger daughters speak German and English.  These are experiences that they would have never received had we lived in West Virginia.

I hope that you are doing well, and that life is treating you good.