Sincerely,

Monroe Perkins

This was the first letter I had ever written. I asked my uncle to take it to his boss at work. He did.

During the evening of the next day, my sister and I were visiting our aunt and uncle again. While my sister and our aunt prepared a scrumptious morsel for us to eat, our uncle entered the room. He was grinning from ear to ear. He came by me and rubbed the top of my head. He asked my sister and aunt to come to the table. Once we had gathered around him, he told us why he was so cheerful.

“I took the letter you wrote to my boss. He then took the letter to his boss, who took it to his boss, who called me into his office. They talked to me and asked me about what had happened to me. I told them everything. Then after our talk, the head manager told me from now on I would be respected. He told me people would have to call me “mister” because I would be their supervisor. I was promoted. Thank you!”

He rubbed my head again.

Our uncle was promoted to a manager several years later. He often reminded everyone of the letter I had written which changed his life. From that moment, my family looked up to me (or more appropriately down to me since I was a little squirt) with great expectations and came to me whenever they wanted something written. Over the years I have learned the power in written words and the way they can alter lives.

While children my age at that time wrote about how they loved their parents, their relatives, friends, toys or things they did, my first letter was written about a human being’s dignity. There is nothing wrong with children trying to write letters about who and what they love. In fact these are wonderful and indicate a sublime condition with their lives. However my youthful eyes were open at an early age to recognize there are sometimes other states which must be spoken of.