My latest book, Letters Between Friends, is different. It is a collection of letters, mostly sent as e-mails, between Gary Boden and me. We met in high school, most likely when we were both on the track team. Our real friendship began in college, however, and continued on into adulthood. We had many common interests, including track, boy scouts, political views, and summers spent on Point Judith Pond in Rhode Island, our houses visible to each other less than a mile away but a five mile drive to get from one to the other.

The idea for this book came to me shortly after Gary died in July 2020 (not from covid). I took a little time to pull up all e-mails he and I had shared through the years, all of which I had saved. I found it to be a rich exchange of ideas, happenings, and on occasion foolishness.

The idea came to me to pull these together into a book to present to Gary’s widow and daughter. I didn’t know if Gary saved e-mails the way I did. I thought that would be a nice gesture, a lasting memorial to Gary and to the friendship we shared. While I exchanged e-mails and sometimes snail mail with a few other friends, they amounted to a tiny fraction of the amount Gary and I shared.

I asked Gary’s daughter about what e-mails he kept, which turned out to be fewer than what I had. I’m not sure mine are a comprehensive record. In fact, I have only one letter before 2007, one that Gary sent with a Christmas card in 1993. I had an e-mail program I used before 2007, but alas, those letters are lost into the ether.

The letters in the book include some from a few other besides Gary. In those years when I made trips to Rhode Island, four of us would try to get together. The e-mails usually flew between us as we tried to coordinate our schedules. Then, after my visit, we kept up the multi-person exchange for a while. All but one of those correspondents were fellow 1970 graduates of Cranston High School East.

These letters are not works of art. They are what would be called “familiar letters”, not artistic letters. They capture normal thoughts and communications. For me, those are the letters I tend to like to read best. I left in all the typos so as to reflect what we read at the time they were sent. Here’s an example, showing excerpts from letters we exchanged on 17 November 2008, a day Gary and I celebrated as National Boise Idaho Potatoe Day (don’t ask why):

David to Gary: I begin my work day, at least the pre-hours, by wishing you felicitations on this glorious day. I’m afraid the adherants [sic] to what should be a national holiday are slowly dwindling in number. Is it more than 2? Or has it always been just 2?

Thanks for coming by and reading my blog….

Gary to David: May you also have a grand and glorious NBIPD.

It’s always been only two.

I don’t know how you keep up the volume of writing you do and have time for anything else. Maybe it’s that engineering training and a billable hours mindset that makes you efficient. It’s fun to check in on your blog and I’m curious about a lot of things so your topics naturally raise some questions for me.

I had planned to have the book ready to go in time to take it to Rhode Island in August 2022. Unfortunately, I had to cancel my trip there. So I completed the book and shipped it. I published it on Amazon so that a few friends could buy copies. My plans were to pull the book down after everyone had made their purchases. However, one of the correspondents thought it was so great, he posted it on Facebook for the world to see. I quickly asked him to take it down, explaining that I hadn’t sought permission of the copyright owners for publishing their letters to a broad audience. He removed it. Another correspondent in the book said he, too, thought I ought to let the book be known to the world.

So I went through the process of obtaining the permissions needed. Two correspondents asked for a handful of redactions, which I made. I saw two redactions that should happen as well as a half-dozen typos to correct, and I did those. Then I reformatted the book for print, and developed an e-book. I uploaded the new files on Saturday, March 18. Amazon approved them the same day. The book had remained for sale all the time while the permissions process was progressing.

Now, Letters Between Friends is out for purchase by the general public. Letter collections are not very interesting to most people, so I don’t expect this to be a best-seller. In fact, I would be shocked if it sold more than 10 copies. But it’s out there, for whatever good it will do. It is available at Amazon should you want a copy.

A tribute to a friendship cut short.