CALF ROPE

Are members of my family the only ones who say "calf rope" to let someone know you surrender? You have had enough tickling or wrestling or annoyance.

Ever since the first person who read Jessie's story asked me "When are you writing the sequel?" I have consistently answered, "When your character dies at the end of the book, how can there be a sequel?"

No fewer than six people asked me Sunday morning to please write more about Jessie. So it was that I sat down at the computer Sunday afternoon shouting "CALF ROPE" and typing a working title -- Searching for Jessie. It was my intent to trace the research necessary to create Jessie the story of a genteel woman in frontier Alaska. Only problem is that fewer than two paragraphs into the sequal, I hit a big problem.

Ever since the acquisition of the trunk in 1970 , I have been told that Jessie arrived in Eagle, Alaska, via the Valdez Trail. I have studied this path for some time and cannot rectify either her mother's illness or her arrival in Eagle. I have met a gentleman via telephone who may know how to fit the puzzle pieces together. I look forward to meeting him face to face (or as Jessie would say tete a tete).

Meanwhile, as sincere as I was when I shouted "calf rope," perhaps I had my fingers crossed when I spoke the words. Everyone knows it's okay to fabricate things if your fingers are crossed when you spoke.