To Whom This May Concern: My First Letter

To Whom This May Concern

My sister and I often visited our Uncle and Aunt when we children. Our school was not too far from their home so we walked from school to meet our aunt at their house shortly after she arrived in the afternoon from her job. My sister would help our aunt in the kitchen. Our aunt was a very good cook who could prepare an international entrée of meals from Chinese, Mexican, Italian, to our traditional Southern menus which we commonly called "soul food". We ate very heartedly at their home; that was one of reasons why I was a little plump in those days. It was 1964.

One day while we sat at the table eating, our uncle entered the house frustrated and angry. He spoke aloud to our aunt about what had happened to him at work; how he was mistreated. “I've been working hard at this job for nearly 20 years and still call me boy and still call me a N….!” She tried to console him, but he quickly walked away into his bedroom to change clothes.

I had also shared with him some of his sense of animosity and hopelessness he felt. Two weeks earlier he and I were traveling on the Golden State Freeway in Glendale when a white driver pulled along side of us and yelled out “get out of here, N…!” He side-swiped us, ran us off the freeway and onto the side embankment. Fortunately I saw and remembered his license plate number and wrote them down on a scrap of paper for my uncle. He later filed an accident report with the police.

After hearing my uncle's anguish and witnessing his anger of being treated so at work, I pulled a piece of paper and a pencil from my school pack. I came up to my uncle in the den and told him I would write a letter for him to give to his boss. He smiled because he thought it was amusing that an eleven year old child would take the time to write about his grievances.

What exactly was written has mostly been lost or destroyed. But what I remember is as follows:

To Whom This May Concern

I am Mr. Monroe Perkins. I have worked for you for nearly 20 years. I have reported to work early and I have never been late. I have worked hard all these many years and I have done whatever you asked me to do. I am a man and not a boy. Could you kindly give me the respect by calling me “mister”.

Sincerely,

Monroe Perkins

This was the first letter I had ever written. I asked my uncle to take it to his boss at work. He did.

During the evening of the next day, my sister and I were visiting our aunt and uncle again. While my sister and our aunt prepared a scrumptious morsel for us to eat, our uncle entered the room. He was grinning from ear to ear. He came by me and rubbed the top of my head. He asked my sister and aunt to come to the table. Once we had gathered around him, he told us why he was so cheerful.

“I took the letter you wrote to my boss. He then took the letter to his boss, who took it to his boss, who called me into his office. They talked to me and asked me about what had happened to me. I told them everything. Then after our talk, the head manager told me from now on I would be respected. He told me people would have to call me "mister" because I would be their supervisor. I was promoted. Thank you!”

He rubbed my head again.

Our uncle was promoted to a manager several years later. He often reminded everyone of the letter I had written which changed his life. From that moment, my family looked up to me (or more appropriately down to me since I was a little squirt) with great expectations and came to me whenever they wanted something written. Over the years I have learned the power in written words and the way they can alter lives.

While children my age at that time wrote about how they loved their parents, their relatives, friends, toys or things they did, my first letter was written about a human being's dignity. There is nothing wrong with children trying to write letters about who and what they love. In fact these are wonderful and indicate a sublime condition with their lives. However my youthful eyes were open at an early age to recognize there are sometimes other states which must be spoken of.