By RAHN ADAMS
Ever since I learned how to address an envelope—something most school-aged kids don’t know how to do now—I’ve written fan letters to my heroes. Not emails. I’m talking about honest-to-goodness, pencil-chewing, hunted-and-pecked, forehead-creasing, lower-lip biting, pink eraser and Wite-Out smudged fan letters. Emails ain’t got no soul.
And I’ve actually received some personal responses, from people like home run king Henry Aaron and his Atlanta Braves teammate Ralph Garr in the 1970s; Nobel Prize-winning novelist Saul Bellow and science fiction pioneer Ray Bradbury in the 1980s; and, as of today, President Barack Obama, who, to me, is the best U.S. president of my lifetime so far.
I was an eighth-grader at Happy Valley Elementary School near Lenoir, N.C., in April of 1973 when I decided to write to Hank Aaron, my favorite player, who also happened to play for my favorite team. He was chasing Babe Ruth’s Major League record of 714 career home runs, and I wanted to tell Hank how much I admired him, so I wrote the letter in pencil on lined Blue Horse notebook paper and zipped it off to my hero in care of the Atlanta Braves. I’m not sure how I got the team’s address, maybe from an Atlanta telephone book at the public library. The Internet didn’t exist back then.
Also, there was no such term as “snail mail.” I waited week after week, but there was no response from Hank, not even a postcard. Finally, in mid-June, not long after school let out for the summer, the rural-route carrier left in our mailbox the most beautiful #10 envelope that I had ever received, one with the Braves’ blue and red logo in the upper-left, return address corner. I don’t remember how quickly I tore open the envelope—probably as I stood there at the mailbox—but I didn’t mangle it too badly. Inside, I found not a letter but a postcard-sized, color photograph of ol’ Hammerin’ Hank.
With a puff of labored breath, I blew the envelope open to make sure Hank’s letter wasn’t stuck inside. Nope. I looked again. Nothing. Just the postcard. I turned it over and saw that the back was blank. I looked at the photo again. Hank was wearing his familiar #44 uniform, one of those ’70s-chic getups that made the Braves look more like a softball team than a Major League club. But I didn’t care. They were my favorite team, and Hank was my favorite player. They were the best, as far as I was concerned.
By the time I got back to the house, I’d noticed that Hank—or maybe it was a team secretary, as was rumored to be the case with some famous Big Leaguers—had signed the photo faintly in blue ballpoint pen. I’m almost positive that the signature is legitimate, though, because it matches other verified ones I’ve seen elsewhere on the Web. A year later, after Hank had broken the Babe’s record, the photos that fans received bore a machine-printed signature. I know, because that’s what the Braves sent to my little brother after he sent his first and only fan letter.
All the letters I’ve received from famous folks have stories connected with them, but none was more thrilling than that signed photograph from one of my first heroes. I actually wrote Mr. Aaron another letter a few years ago, back when San Francisco Giant Barry Bonds was chasing Hank’s home run record and eventually surpassed it. I’d read an interview with Mr. Aaron in which he described the hate mail and death threats from racists who didn’t want to see a black man break a white man’s record. I wrote that second time to say that I, like many of my young friends back then, almost all of them white, hadn’t hated him. We had loved him. We had wanted to be just like him.
Mr. Aaron didn’t answer that letter. There was no postcard photo with a faint signature. No nothing. But I don’t regret writing him the letter. I assume that he or at least his secretary received it. I wanted him to know that he was an important part of my youth and that I had loved him. I still love him. He was my first real hero, and race had nothing to do with it. To communicate that was enough for me.
That’s how I felt this afternoon when I opened our post office box in Morganton and took out, first, our church’s over-sized newsletter and then saw a greenish-white #10 envelope of fine stationary still leaning against the side of the tiny compartment. I saw that its return address was The White House, and I knew exactly what it was. I’d been expecting it.
I wrote the letter in October to formally thank President Obama for all he has done for America over the past eight years and for the fine example that he and his family have set for all Americans. I voted for him in both Presidential elections, though I voted for Hillary Clinton in North Carolina’s 2008 Democratic Primary. After Mr. Obama won the nomination, I read his best-selling book The Audacity of Hope and was impressed by his intelligence and sincerity, in particular. I’d also always liked Sen. John McCain, and I still do, but his choice of former Alaska governor Sarah Palin as his running-mate ensured that my vote would be for Mr. Obama.
I have regretted neither vote for Mr. Obama. As I said, he has proven to be the best President of my lifetime—not perfect, but honest, intelligent and fair. That’s my opinion, and you don’t have to agree with it. Also, even though his religious beliefs should be irrelevant, Mr. Obama has been a better Christian example than many other policymakers and political players who wear their Christian affiliation on their sleeves. Watching President Obama and his family leave the White House isn’t even bittersweet. It’s sad. I do wish they could stay four more years, as the crowd chanted during his farewell address earlier this week.
The letter I received today, though personalized with my name, was a form letter. I don’t know if the letter’s signature is authentic—that is, signed by Mr. Obama’s own hand—but I doubt it. Still, none of that matters. I said what I wanted and needed to say, and someone read it, even if it were only the Secret Service. Maybe my letter of thanks was tallied as nothing more than a positive letter from a friendly constituent. But it did my heart good to say, “Thank you, Mr. President,” and to go to some trouble to do it. It really did.
I’ll be writing President-elect Donald J. Trump a letter not long after his inauguration on Jan. 20th, even though I haven’t finished reading his book The Art of the Deal. If and when he responds, I just hope the letter doesn’t come postage due.