The tradition started when Jason and I got old enough to answer it and we would fight over who was going to get it first. Daddy solved our dilemma by ...declaring that we would take weekly turns answering the phone. This week was Casey's week and we waited while she went to the living room to see who was calling us at nine o'clock on a Saturday night.She came back and told Mama it was for her and not more than half an hour later, Mama came back in and announced the most gosh awful news.She said,. Went by boat. AirMail was far too expensive. By boat usually meant a Liner like the Queen Mary but sometimes it meant steamship ... as in tramp freighter. Tramp freighters have no set schedule ... they are opportunists ... they go where the freight is.Mail by Liner was five days ... steamship might be five weeks ... and that's after getting to New York or Boston by rail.A day spent being "sorted" in the local Post Office ... another day on the train, yet another day at the New York or Boston. That may have been something they did just for me this time, but it was this time that mattered the most to me, so I considered it a triumph of Chinese culture.I was given enough food to EASILY last until Monday's lunch, so it looked like I'd be eating Chinese for lunch after all.Between their fantastic food, their very friendly dinner table atmosphere, their generosity with the aforementioned fantastic food, and their giving away their daughters into sexual servitude, I was rapidly becoming a. The late winter sun starts to peak above the horizon and the coven turnto walk away from their forest gathering place. Olive with her transitionrequires help and sits in a wheelchair, now an elderly lady, a littlefrail and feeling rather faint after the recent changes in her life.Samantha, still over the moon with her transition, turns to the group andholds her hand up indicating she has something to say."My friends, I can't thank you enough for what you have done for me thisevening," her face.