Dear [Emmy],
Reading is a great activity, because It will teach you things without you even realizing that you’ve been taught them. If you think you don’t like reading, you’re probably just reading the wrong books. 
Tom
Dear [Emmy],
Well, I will get lots of rejections. Writers usually get 20 to 40 rejections per article, before they find someone to publish it. That’s just the nature of the business.
Good luck on the interview with JFC.
Talk to you later,
Tom
Dear [Lex],
[Jack] already knows about [Rick's] apology. Apparently, [Rick] talked at length about it with him at camp.
No, I’m not going out of my way to renew friendship with [Rick]. While he apologized for a single weekend of poor behavior last August, I think he still has many of the same personality traits. Those would take him much longer to change. And I’m not wiling to put up with him until he does, if ever he does.
Take care,
Tom
Dear [Emmy],
Yes, I am concerned that you make good choices now, and in the future.
I talked with Mom about getting you and taking you back to the train station. We’re all go here.
Have a good afternoon, and will talk to you sometime tonight.
Later,
Tom
Dear [Lex],
All is well here, [...]. Camp was great. I really enjoyed seeing everyone again. [Rick] apologized to me for some of his poor behavior over the past two years. But I fear that it’s too little, too late, though I never thought I’d ever hear him admit that he was wrong about anything. But he did. So we’ll have to see how things go. I don’t plan on calling him at this point either.
Well, thanks for writing, and take care.
Tom
[Emmy],
Well, since you sent this, you seem to be better.
Thanks. I appreciate your confidence in my good judgment and hope you benefit from my life experience through knowing me. Hopefully, I can save you from making many of the mistakes I made while your age. Of course, sometimes, we humans must experience things for ourselves to learn them well. Failure often teaches best. So I can’t prevent you from making all mistakes of course. I just hope to protect you from those pointless failures.
Perhaps we can read some of my work this weekend when you get here.
Talk to you later,
Tom
[Marsha],
It’s Tom Hesley. How are you? Came across a pic of you from 1989 at the company picnic that summer, and got to thinking of you and wondering how things are going?
I’ll tell you more about what I’m doing once I know I’ve got your correct email address.
Take care,
Tom Hesley
Dear [Lynn],
Ooops, I typed the wrong URL. The correct one is:
http://www.pricewatch.com/
Well, this weekend, I have a wedding, and will be helping the local Lions Club raise money at our Bingo pavilion down the street. I’ll probably write a couple thousand words as well.
Have a great weekend.
Tom
Dear [Emmy],
That’s really sweet. I need a great friend to act as a cheering section and sounding board, who really cares.
I’ll put your address in my address book.
Take care,
Tom
Dear [Lynn],
Maxtor and Western Digital (WD) drives are great. Seagates are good also but tend to be expensive, and I’m not convinced that they’re any better overall than WD or Maxtor. http://www.pricewatch.com/ lists both Maxtor and WD 200 GB USB drives for $94. By the time you finish paying shipping and tax, you’d probably be looking at $115 at most, quite a bit less than the $193 you’re considering spending.
On the drive size: Well, you want drives that can hold at least several complete backups. And with the price per gigabyte being so low these days, why not go large? Don’t get too big though because once you get up to 300 GB, the price per GB rises sharply. But 200 GB is a pretty main-stream size these days, and drives around this size are generally the cheapest per GB. I think 200 GB would be what you need and you’ll get it cheap as well.
Tom