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Dear Mister King~
I'd like to introduce myself to you. My name is
Charlene, but my friends call me
Charlie. I've
endured a lot of devastating tragedies in my life-
time, including a Series Of Fires.
I grew up in Traverse City, a big tourist town in
Michigan. My parents owned a
Big Hotel.
I used to own a
Saint Bernard, but he's dead now.
I have a niece who is a very talented artist for her
age. One of my sons also does well artistically, and
my brother is a commercial artist. Sometimes I refer
to them as The Drawing Of The Three.
I am very involved with children & have spent
most of my adult life as a stay at home mom. I used
to live in a 5 bedroom farmhouse & when my
children grew up & moved on, I decided to continue
filling the rooms with kids. I became a foster parent
for severely sexually & physically abused &
neglected children. We were told during training that
only two children who were returned home through
our agency, died that year. I think that's a damn
shame & that's two deaths that the courts & Regulators are responsible for.
Doing foster care was really a trip! I had a 14 year
old boy who wouldn't even try to face his problems.
I called him my Running Man.
Some kids came to us in sheer
Desperation. Some
of them were so screwed up emotionally that they
couldn't even testify in court. The abusers plea-
bargain & get off with very light sentences. I'd like
to see them walk The Green Mile.
One of my favorite foster daughters was a girl
named Christine. She was anorexic & kept getting Thinner. Another foster daughter suffered from
bulimia & for awhile, my house looked like the Skeleton Crew!
Some of the kids I got were
Sleepwalkers so I had
to install alarms on their bedroom doors so I would
know if someone left their room at night.
The court system really sucks & several times I had
to take The Stand to try to help terminate parental
rights. During one case where it looked like the judge
might return the kids to their mom, my friend
Rose
(who wanted to adopt them) kept getting Madder.
The homes these children come from are so
Macabre. In one, the ceilings & walls were actually
caving in. It was a real Wasteland! The children live
in such
Misery. Most of the kids I got were such Needful Things.
The last child I had was a 6-year-old boy who was
always in a Rage.
By the time I would get to bed, it was usually
Four
Past Midnight. Since I suffer from
Insomnia, & my
husband worked the
Night Shift, I usually stayed up
reading or writing.
One of my first teen girls had a boyfriend named
Gerald. He didn't treat her very well & I told her
not to play his
Game. She broke up with him shortly
afterward, & met a wonderful guy named
Richard.
Another teens little son couldn't say grandma &
used to call me Mochman - (I don't know where he
got that from...)
Doing foster care was rewarding though. One
foster child bought me a double-headed
Dragon, &
you should see it's Eyes!
My van was 4 years old & had over 120,000 miles
on it. Whenever I had to take the kids to the agency
or to counciling, I'd put it in Maximum Overdrive
& pray!
Earlier I mentioned my husband... Jim is a
Hungarian & I like to call him my
Gypsy. One of my
hobbies is baking, especially Bubbly Pies. Isn't food
one way to a man's heart? Anyway, a couple of years
ago he convinced me to take
The Long Walk & get
married. I've been married twice before & was a little
bit afraid... I hope this one won't end up in
The Dead
Zone... (It did...)
Jim has custody of his 10 year old daughter & one
year we rented ponies & a clown for her birthday
party. I'm not sure if the clown was a he or a she, but IT sure was a big hit! It even passed out Balloons!
I was a very
Introverted child. My mother never
talked to me about the facts of life, but I don't CARe.
I think I turned out just fine!
I'm very active & I spend a lot of time outside
during all of the Different Seasons.
I feel that I am a very compassionate, loving person
& yet sometimes I know that I have this
Dark Half...
It's like I close my eyes & I can see a real Creepshow.
There was a crisis in my life that made it necessary
for me to obtain a couple of pistols & learn how to
shoot. I'm proud to say I've become a very good Gunslinger!
When the day is over, I'd like nothing better then
to climb into a Dark Tower with my reading lamp & Stephen King Library & get lost in some
Nightmares
& Dreamscapes. I hope to spend my Golden Years
still reading your novels. Tabitha is a lucky woman
to be the Stephen King Companion & grow older
with you!
That's about enough of this outlandish fun! I guess
I'll bite the Silver Bullet & stop this nonsense. But
whether you believe it or not, what you've just read
is truely my life. If I tried to incorporate any more,
I'd have to start making it up! And I've sometimes
been told that I live in enough of a fantasy world.
If you enjoyed my letter to Mr. King,
I encourage you to go to my DARK EARTH
page & check out some of my short stories.
I'm just getting it started,
but have several up already for you to enjoy.
