Bucky

March 8, 2014

Dear Mr. Pinkwater;

I put keyboard to screen in search of an answer that has troubled my sleep for many years?

Have you ever owned a red pick, an old FORD I think. When I ask this I am not concerned with the entire sum of your days but rather in the last 10 years. I will explain

I have been an avid follower of your writings for many years, through my ex wife who was and is a children's librarian as well as a cadre of friends who introduced me to your prose in the science fiction community. All of your works I have loved a lot, but your works about the Hudson River Valley touched a part of me I didn't know existed until that moment. I am a native Californian and thus unacquainted with this thing called "seasons".

That is until I became involved with a woman long distance over the internet who lived in Kerhonksen and whom I was know to visit on occasion. On one such occasion I was making my way to her house from Stewart Newberg in a rental cal into whose radio I had plugged my iPhone and, which at the moment in question, I was listening to "Chicago Days, Hoboken Nights". I listen to your works a lot when I drive and actually time some trips and rest stops by the length of them. Also, being as I was where I was I figured it was what all the locals did.

I was pulled up to a stop light in New Paltz when it happens, a flash of oxidized red in the sunlight. It was a truck. Behind the wheel was a large man. His head was shaven. He had familiar round spectacles. The jacket he was wearing was similar to one I had seen on a dust jacket. He had a gentleman's figure. Was it he, er you? My neck snapped around with a speed that throated to dislocate my skull but the vision was gone from view behind a Stewarts.

Now I know that you live in the Hudson river Valley but I am ignorant of where. This could be like a message from a relative in another country who hears of an earthquake in Oklahoma and ask if you are OK in Los Angeles. Or maybe not. The chance of it being yo I expect are rather slim, but if it wasn't consider this a warning. There is someone in that area who either looks so much like you as top fool a rapid fan or there is someone manufacturing a clone army of Pinkwaters to undertake who know what nefarious deed.

Thank you for your time, your words, your humor and please keep writing

Your Pal

Bucky

There are a great many people in the vicinity of New Paltz, especially in the mountains nearby, who look exactly like me.  I myself never go there.  Draw your own conclusions.  A pickup truck?  What do you take me for?