LETTERS FROM HOME: MANY RIVERS TO CROSS AND JESSE HELMS

Dear Ken,

We had to run the river wild next to the house last weekend. Five inches of rain turned the little creek into a torrent.

It was a bit dicey. We returned home just before midnight to find the water running hard and deep. Like pioneers, we charged across anyway, and watched steam rise off the engine on the other side.

Melina was in town and stayed with us but decided her little Honda might not make it across. Good decision. So we plunged back in to ferry her across.

She has a 4.0 average at Mizzou and is working on getting an internship in Bulgaria. Italian Czech with a camera. Expect war to break out there soon.

DC and I went to Don G.'s 50th birthday party. Hundreds of the town's upright, down-home and sideways citizens attended.

The band included a bald young guy who sang like Neil Young and wore big rings. Don, turned out in a Stag beer bowling and puffing a stogie, was hugging every woman in reach.

It was a reunion of people who made a lifestyle out of hanging out in Cape Girardeau 20 years ago. Carolyn, Mean Jean, Mean Christine the Lottery Queen, Frig. All of us found our way since then, but I'm sure our replacements are having a good time.

I don't think DC's used to being in a room with that many seasoned bon vivants at one time. We arrived late and left early.

The better to come home to discover our phone machine clogged with more urgent calls from bill collectors.

Not for us, of course. Of course. For the previous holder of our phone number, who apparently has been driven underground by debt.

At first, DC and I answered some of these calls with an explanation that we are merely the unfortunate inheritors of a tainted phone number.

But whether the "Who, me?" call is a well-known dodge in the business of hounding deadbeats or this guy went on a world-class shopping spree before buying a one-way ticket to Katmandu, the calls kept coming.

The last straw is when your phoned order for pizza-to-go is denied. Apparently our number's was on a computerized directory of bad pizza risks.

DC called the phone company to do a little complaining of her own. Seems the phone number was last used in June, when students are leaving towns and newlyweds starting new lives together.

Also seems a number has only three months to clear up any bad karma before it's returned to circulation. Hardly seems enough considering what's dripping from phone lines these days, but the customer service representative said we're lucky. In fast-growing areas, the waiting period is only one month. Don't give up, obscene phone-callers.

Now we have a brand new, digitally refreshed phone number. It doesn't have the easy-to-remember cant of its predecessor, but we'll trade poetry for practicality in this case. Or we'd like to.

When we got home last night, a message was waiting for some stranger from some stranger. Same urgency. We called this morning. Another collection agency. Doesn't anyone leave town with just fond memories anymore?

Got to go. The creek's coming up and Jesse Helms is the new expert on American foreign policy. Get out the lifeboats.

Sam