Dear Mr. President,
I understand that during your free time you lift weights to bulk up. I too just started lifting weights, mainly because, as an incoming senior, I keep getting mistaken for an incoming freshman. I also threw up after running one lap sophomore year, which was rather embarrassing.
I go to the YMCA on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights, but I don’t have the money for a personal trainer, so I’m kind of on my own. Which muscle groups do you consider most important? How long do you stretch for, normally? Do you breathe in lifting up or coming back down? How many reps do you do for a given exercise? How many sets? Do you ever get uncomfortable having the universal machine biceps curl on level three when there’s a large man standing behind you who could easily have it on level eight? I tend to tense up myself, and I can barely get through the set. I keep wondering what he’s thinking. I keep picturing him in my head, pushing me aside and saying, in that Terminator-type voice, “Move over, little boy. You weak like billy-goat.”
I’ve been doing my routine for four weeks now. Every time: 35 minutes on exercise bike, 2 sets Biceps Curl, 2 sets Leg Extension, 2 sets Sitting Row, 2 sets Abdominal Crunch, 2 sets Back Extension, 2 sets Arm Lift. I lift and lift, no results. I mean, my arms sure get sore afterwards but that’s it. Does this happen to you, Mr. President? I hope I’m not doing it wrong. Maybe I just screwed up somehow. I always screw up. Always.
Yesterday I decided to start running on my off-days: Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday. I consider myself moderately fast but I just find it so difficult. Not the running itself, but the concept of it, Mr. President. I mean, I’m running down the block in shorts and a T-shirt and people want to know where I’m going. And that’s just it: I don’t know where I’m going. Do you ask these questions when you’re running, Mr. President? Do you ever think to yourself, why am I running? I have no where to go to. There is not a masked man chasing me. I am not a refugee. I am not a delusional soldier with a knife in my foot. Where am I headed?
And the answer, of course, is no where. I have no destination in mind. For you, perhaps, it might be easier, because there are probably TV cameras and Secret Service Guys following you, which provides at least the illusion of purpose.
It’d be much better if I had someone to race against, Mr. President.
Maybe we could race against each other.
We could report our times at the end of the week, at least pretending to be honest. It could be like the Cold War dressed in tennis shoes and a sweatband.
I hope that you will consider my challenge.
Sincerely,
Kevin Feeney
Dear Mr. President,
Why aren’t you doing more to protect Iraqi women? The lawlessness in Iraq is our responsibility, since we removed the existing enforcement structures. You do realize that if a woman is raped, many families feel that she must be killed, under tribal law?
Sincerely,
Sue Miller
Dear Mr. President,
My mom told me once that you could put a cat in the oven, but that wouldn’t make it a biscuit. It would still be a cat. I’m not sure what that means.
Sincerely,
The Old Post Office
Dear Mr. President,
I am writing you concerning my employability as an Information Technology Professional.
In January of 1998 I was hired into the Texas technology sector as an Information Technology Manager. Since that time I have seen this sector diminish both locally and nationally and I have recently closed the same 630,000 square foot semiconductor manufacturing facility in Irving, TX for the second time.
My professional background is in excess of 20 years of information technology and leadership. I feel that I have a significant contribution to make to our world leadership and homeland security.
I am increasingly frustrated with my ability to procure any work with organizations contracted by the Federal government. All of these positions would require that I already posses some sort of security clearance. As my previous employers did not interface with the federal government’s sensitive information I never had the need to be granted any sort of security clearance.
Are there any programs to assist me in this matter? I would have no issues with any background investigation obtaining the required security clearance.
Sincerely,
Robert A. Ruger
Dear Mr. President,
I am fairly busy at work, so I am afraid my letter to you today will be uncharacteristically brief.
Sincerely,
Dave Olsen
Dear Mr. President,
I was thinking yesterday about my father. He was a Marine during the Vietnam War. He was a clarinetist with just one good eye, so he was stationed in Quantico, Virginia, and marched in parades and played at ceremonial military functions, though I have never asked him which ones or what sorts.
He was at Paris Island for boot camp. Just because he only had one good eye doesn’t mean that he didn’t have to go to boot camp. At Paris Island they don’t teach you how to play a clarinet or how to assemble one or how to keep it clean. They teach you how to fire a rifle and disassemble it and clean it and put it back together, maybe even with your eyes closed.
He had to run an obstacle course and climb a rope, I’d guess. He must have affixed a bayonet to his rifle and learned how to unleash the proper bloodcurdling roar as he charged his enemy.
In the Marine Corps Marching Band, he would affix a reed to his mouthpiece. A clarinet reed is a thin, brittle piece of wood, which vibrates between your lips when you play the instrument. (All woodwinds have reeds, which is why even a metal saxophone is called a woodwind.)
My father is still a one-eyed clarinetist. He plays in a community concert band in Kalamazoo, Michigan, where he has volunteered to play bass clarinet since he does not have the first chair clarinet lip that he used to. He will always be a Marine, I suppose, and he will always be a clarinetist. He sometimes mentions the lessons of discipline and hard work that the Marines taught him, but only in passing. He plays the clarinet every week, and I ask him how it’s going whenever we call each other on the phone. It is strange to me that he should ever have been a Marine and thought about killing someone or being killed in a sweaty, far-away forest. But what I was thinking yesterday was that when he mentions those lessons in passing (say as we might be talking about my uncertainty in my career path), perhaps he has an image in his mind of a very particular time and place on Paris Island when he was practicing, just in case his one eye was good enough for Vietnam after all.
Sincerely,
James Parsons
Dear Mr. President,
I’m really not sure about anything anymore.
Sincerely,
Franco Vitella
Dear Mr. President,
Short associative poetry about an ex-girlfriend:
VICTORIA
When we passed the army surplus store on our second date
I idly eyed the flak jackets.
Sincerely,
Tim Jones
Dear Mr. President,
I am a schoolteacher in Manhattan, New York. I work with special-education, high-school students. I love my job, and it’s an honor to work with these students. I have also been a Sunday School teacher since I was 14 years old. I work with the children in the community of Spanish Harlem. Our children always pray for you and your family.
Mr. Bush, I have a concern for New York City this summer. The mayor and governor have announced that they are going to close all public pools. Most of the youth and children that go to the pools are poor, lower-class people. One of the greatest entertainment for these children is the pool.
New York City children have a right to go to these public pools. If the pools are closed, it will force these poor or lower-class children to be out on the street in the heat, probably engaging in negative activities. Our children have been through a lot with the 9/11 event, and the war with Iraq. You might ask, “Why is Ms. DeLeon writing to me and not to the mayor or governor?” The answer is these two men are not Holy-Ghost filled, whereas you are.
Mr. Bush, if you can do any thing concerning this matter, you are truly going to bless so many families.
If you are ever in Spanish Harlem, Mr. President, you and your family are invited to Our Church.
Iglesia de Dios
1800 Third Ave. at 100 St.
New York, NY 10029
My pastor’s name is Rev. Angel Valentin.
Or the school I work in is:
PS 721
250 West Houston Street
New York, NY 10014-4880
Sincerely,
Ms. Rosa Esther DeLeon
[NOTE: The opinions expressed in these letters do not necessarily represent those of McSweeney’s, Knopf, or Gabe Hudson.]