This Then

Dear Reader, Welcome to Crossing Place, where Cinder Smythe tells her High School students she doesn't feel experienced enough to know more than that she misses her National Guardsman; yet, her Country Chatoyant (shaw-toy-awnt) newspaper columns inspire readers on the triangle, including soldiers in Iraq and these very students. In this year, Frieda Young, afraid of death, takes in a family to care for hers, writes a poetry book for her twins, is pleased her mother wants to marry again, yet has trouble communicating with her husband. If Racine can laugh over toilet paper and kids can gleefully hug a lady in a pink parka thrown over her housecoat, you, Dear Reader, can try to understand why Amy respects Fly because of what happens on the mountain. For the same reasons, tHIS author expects Josh to find the sum of the parts inside the people of Crossing Place next in tHIS tIME. Also, Dear Reader, in those early months of 2006, Sammy will no longer be slow. Fly will be there to think out of the box over it. np-c