By SALLIE SATTERTHWAITE
sallies@juno.com

Well, let's see what's in the old mailbag today.

Mmmm. It's all outgoing mail. Not unusual: I don't get a lot of letters myself. People who like what I write tell me on the street, at church, in the stores, on the phone. Those who don't write letters to the editor mostly. If we're going to dip into the mailbag, I guess we'll just have to look at what's going out.

Here's one to Editor-at-large Hamrick. (Doesn't that sound like he slipped his leash and is running around unfettered?) In an interoffice e-mail, of sorts, he objected to my reinforcing the urban myth about the turn of the millennium.

Dear Dave, Sorry you took exception to my helping perpetuate the idea that Jan. 1, 2000 was the beginning of a new millennium. Of course I know it wasn't, except in the sense that every day is the beginning of some block of time, as in, “Today is the first day of the rest of...,” etc. Whether Jan. 1, 2000 or Jan. 1, 2001, we're dealing in arbitrary dates chosen by committee.

Ol' Dionysius Exiguus gave it his best shot, without benefit of Hubble telescope and computers, but he apparently missed by upward of seven years. And I tend to side with the ancients who started the calendar on the solstice rather than 10 days later. So where does that leave millennium-siting? Besides, there's that Western hubris again. Who's to say our system of dating is more valid than that of, say, the Hebrews or the Chinese?

But, Dave, don't you think any event that brought all the world's peoples into such unprecedented peaceful unity is worth celebrating? Have you ever seen such global jubilation? Of course, don't you know, since we survived Jan. 1, 2000 unscathed, all the fearmongers will have another crack at capitalizing on ignorance as this year draws to a close. All in favor of banning the playing in public of “Also Sprach Zarathustra” every time “2001” is mentioned, please signify by saying NO! Sallie

Ah, here's one to you:

Dear Readers: I need your help. With Valentine's Day on the next calendar page, may I solicit your input for a column whose working title might be Romances Worth Retelling? If you have had, or know of someone who has had, a really, really touching romance — preferably one that led to a permanent commitment — write and tell me about it. I'll edit the best and see if they'd make good reading the week before and/or after Cupid's annual outing.

Also, I've noticed that folk sayings, or proverbs, differ delightfully from one culture to another. Mary's friend Rainer often says things that tickle our funny bones because they are so “right on,” and we wonder why Germans say them and we don't. For example, I said something about wanting to save money on some purchase, and Rainer replied, “In Germany, we have a saying, `The last shirt has no pockets.'” Our equivalency, I suppose, would be “You can't take it with you.”

If you know of such proverbs from other lands or even other regions of this one, share them with me, would you? My address is 127 Terrace Tay, Peachtree City, or SallieS@Juno.com. Thanks! Sallie

To a fan:

Dear Mr. Bryan III: And your point? Sincerely, Sallie “Feel-good” Satterthwaite

P.S. You're certainly entitled to your opinion, while I am not, not in a soft-news series like the school comparisons. Believe it or not, I don't really have an opinion on this issue anyhow. At least when I put words inside quotes, I nearly always get them right — which is more than you can say. I did a search on all 25,500+ bytes in those articles, and not once did the words “highly,” “rated,” or “government” occur, all attributed to me by you.

P.P.S. “Fluff” and “feel-good” don't bother me — that's what I do best — but “brain-dead”? I thought some of my stuff has occasionally demonstrated spontaneous excitation of electrical potential between oligodendrocytically myelinated peripheral nerve fibers proximal to the post synaptic membrane and exacerbated by ionic concentration disparities contiguous to the corpus callosum in the telencephalon. Or maybe not.

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