Correspondence

 The previous resident of the White House sent me one letter. In it, he glorified his willingness to sign the checks that his administration finally acquiesced to sending us all checks to help defray the cost of huddling in our living rooms while the pandemic raged outside. The current resident sent me a similar letter, not long after he came to the office. The oval one. It was a little less self-aggrandizing, but also in direct reference to the payment he and his administration had wrangled out of the treasury. To keep me and my fellow Americans afloat. So I've had nice letters from the past two presidents.

Form letters. 

No surprise. I wouldn't expect the Chief Executive of the United States to have the time or interest in my ongoing struggles to reach out to me personally. Contrastingly, I did take the time to write directly to Joe Biden somewhat early in his reign. I wanted to let him know my feelings about education policy and direction. I hoped that he would find it in his heart and mind to turn around some of the ugly moves made by Betsy DeVos and her evil henchmen. Welcome to your new job, please don't mess us up. Teachers, specifically. Americans, generally.

Now it can be told: I spent a good chunk of three years replying to at least one tweet a day from the Great Orange Idiot. In this way, I had an ongoing back and forth with the Great Orange Idiot for that time. Or I imagined that I did. I had a secret wish that I might somehow get a response from the Great Orange Idiot. Or I might get blocked. That was the badge of honor I chased for a good long time. Never happened. Just a voice shouting in the social media wilderness. Other people saw it. Read it. Liked it. And some didn't. They argued with me. 

But I didn't engage. This was not the conversation I wanted to happen. I wanted to talk to the guy who was, nominally, in charge. Never happened. 

Which is why I rejoiced when I got a reply to the letter I sent to Joe Biden. I took some satisfaction in the first paragraph where he thanked me for my thoughts. He went on to encourage me to participate in his agenda and invited me to "remain an active participant in helping write the next great chapter of the American story." 

And I'm not foolish enough to imagine that Joe sat down at his keyboard to pound out those words. He had help, I'm sure. Which is fine. But I also know that his administration finally gave me the bump that I needed. I was engaged. I was connected. I have a pen pal in the White House, and until I hear from him/her/them again, I'll just call it "Joe."