Broken arms and fourth-grade romance

This weekend I finished going through all the notes/letters from (roughly) fourth grade to the present. Quite a feat, right? Anyway, as promised, I present the last batch of notes from Mike S., my elementary school boyfriend.

Let's start with this one:



This one is really hard to read, I know, but it says: "Dear Heidi, I hope your arm feels better. Do you still like me? I like you. Please write back. Love, Mike. P.S. I love you." (It's easier to read if you click on it, but trust me on the transcription.)

A couple of things worth pointing out:

1) The "hope your arm feels better" reference allows us to actually give this note a date. November 1986--when I broke my arm over the Thanksgiving Holiday.

2) Someone needs to write a paper about the differences between saying "I like you" and "I love you" in elementary school notes. Mike S. uses both here and I can't tell if that's redundant or if he means two different things.

3) For anyone who thinks this was a one-sided relationship (given all those desperate pleas for me to write back), please note that he says "do you still like me," implying that I had confirmed at least once that I did like him. That had to be done through a note, because I know there is no way fourth-grade Heidi would have been able to say "I like you" face-to-face.

This note, however, shows that Mike S. might have been a hard guy to appease:



It reads: "Dear Heidi, Do you still love me? I love you. For God's sake, please write back. Love Mike. P.S. I love you."

Notice again that he says "Do you still love me?" That looks good for me, right? The "For God's sake" is awfully needy, right? And pretty cute, I guess.

I love how he adds that postscript to every note.