POSTHUMOUS LOVE LETTER TO MS. SCOTT DALE

Glenn Lehman

For much of the twentieth century, Scottdale, Pennsylvania, was the primary site for denominational publishing activities of what was called the Mennonite Church, until that stream of Mennonites merged with the General Conference Mennonite Church to become Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada. Partly because of the merger, publishing in Scottdale has been significantly downsized in recent years, some publications have ceased to exist, and a variety of publishing efforts have moved to other locations. As a result, continuity of print leadership has been interrupted. Writers search for new places in the structure, and readers have lost a subtext to give context.

Dear Scottie,

Sorry I didn’t write before you died. The last time I visited I had no idea.

It’s no consolation, but other publishing houses fare no better. Sure, the independent presses make money. But denominational houses like you, who know their lineage and sacrifice for the heritage, suffer low sales. Your friend Augsburg Fortress laid off 52 employees in 2001. The Disciples and the Presbyterians did no better at the cash register.

Did you know, Scottie, that there were always young people hanging on to your linotype’s every jot and tittle? For myself, discovering and bonding with you was one of my pivotal religious formations.

Do you remember my first visit? It was the late 1950s. I was on a field trip with other sixth-graders from the camp down the road. Do you remember my first letter to you, almost 50 years ago? I wrote to the kids paper hoping for a pen pal.

Do you remember my first poem, sent to you in 1961? It came after a long youthful struggle in my soul. Passions of the flesh resisted dictates of the Almighty. On my knees my young soul finally said yes to becoming a missionary doctor to Africa. The Almighty promptly said that had been just a test, to see if I was willing. Never so glad to be let off the hook, I grabbed a pencil and scribbled, "The world is ablaze with Autumn, ablaze with beauty divine . . . " And off went my first poem to you, Scottie.

A few weeks later you sent a check for $2.50, and the words appeared on the front page of the youth periodical. I knew my future wife (whom God, according to my mentors, had already chosen) would be reading it, beginning her formation as my companion.

Then one of your swains, young Editor Roth, elicited some fiction from my imagination. A few daring short stories rolled off your presses. And the checks got bigger. Remember what $15 felt like in 1967! Early 1970s I would stop on my way back East to hang out at the pads of friends living in your menagerie. While Jim and Susie cooked up a crockpot of stew, splashed with a little verboten wine, below, for all we knew, some church patriarch was editing the next volume of the denominational encyclopedia.

As any friendship goes, Scottie, I matured and noticed that we were not perfectly matched. What a surprise! But we loved nonetheless, right? I memorized your phone number. I knew your zip (15683) as soon as it came out in 1963. You were much older. I was born when Daniel Kauffman was your chief editor. I learned to read when his successor, Paul Erb, reigned. I thought the world would never be the same when John Drescher took up the mantel. Dan Hertzler assumed the role as I was honing my journalistic skills.

How ironic that you who taught me survival skills are now the one to go! You taught me how to weather the dress issues. In the darkroom you showed me how to doctor photos with too much jewelry or too little skirt. You showed me how to find a path through such issues as Vietnam and civil rights. You’ve seen them all—the zealots on the right and left. Although you loved the printed word, you knew there was yet more truth to break out of the Word.

But Scottie, it never occurred to me that you would not live forever. At least, not outlive me. Did the caregivers try everything? You at least could have told me when you thought the end was coming. But I had to read of your demise in a highly designed new magazine, whose own staff has been cut back.

Now I’m lost without you. Oh, I go online and feel omniscient. I know you’ve just moved on to a better place in cyberspace. But I mourn the terra firma of our courtship. I don’t want to fall in literary love again.

No sooner did you go into a coma than a new committee started to do the numbers. I hate to bring this up, old girl, but apparently you had not paid all your bills. But what do we expect of dowagers prodigal in love! Your elder statesmen and women, those minds, those fingers, those backs, those hearts who now need some retirement, got a short deal. Writers like me, without whose material you couldn’t have published anything except the editorial page, fared no better, I dare say.

Everything changes these days. When you and I were young, Scottie, I’ll never forget the passion with which you, like a Joan of Arc, stood up for good journalism and plain old linear truth. I’ll always cherish the twinkle in your eye, the coterie of free spirits you attracted with your charms, the hint of naughty freedom in the air.

Each great civilization has a literary set. You, Scottie, were my Fleet Street, my New York Publishers Row. You were my shining city on a hill. You, the rustle of fresh paper and ink. A young person could gaze up at you and say, "I could spend my whole life there and not explore it all."

Was there no funeral? No requiem? No proper obituary? Scottie, we will always have the memory between us. I’m getting older. Love goes deeper and stays longer, but it comes slower.

Love, Glenn

—Glenn Lehman is a writer from Leola, Pennsylvania, and loyal reader of much of the former Mennonite Publishing House output. He also earns a living in music and is the director of Harmonies Workshop. He lives with his wife and two children in an 1825 stone house with high-speed Internet, surrounded by Belgian horses. His denominational publishing house by birth and by choice was located in Scottdale, Pennsylvania.