STEPHEN KING                     Everybody's Hero... Dear Mister King~      I'd like to introduce myself to you.  My name is Charlene, but my friends call me Charlie.  I've endured a lot of devastating tragedies in my life-time, including a Series Of Fires.      I grew up in Traverse City, a big tourist town in Michigan.  My parents owned a Big Hotel.      I used to own a Saint Bernard, but he's dead now.      I have a niece who is a very talented artist for her age.  One of my sons also does well artistically, and my brother is a commercial artist.  Sometimes I refer to them as The Drawing Of The Three.      I am very involved with children & have spent most of my adult life as a stay at home mom.  I used to live in a 5 bedroom farmhouse & when my children grew up & moved on, I decided to continue filling the rooms with kids.  I became a foster parent for severely sexually & physically abused & neglected children.  We were told during training that only two children who were returned home through our agency, died that year.  I think that's a damn shame & that's two deaths that the courts & Regulators are responsible for.      Doing foster care was really a trip!  I had a 14 year old boy who wouldn't even try to face his problems.  I called him my Running Man.      Some kids came to us in sheer Desperation.  Some of them were so screwed up emotionally that they couldn't even testify in court.  The abusers plea-bargain & get off with very light sentences.  I'd like to see them walk The Green Mile.      One of my favorite foster daughters was a girl named Christine.  She was anorexic & kept getting Thinner.  Another foster daughter suffered from bulimia & for awhile, my house looked like the Skeleton Crew!      Some of the kids I got were Sleepwalkers so I had to install alarms on their bedroom doors so I would know if someone left their room at night.      The court system really sucks & several times I had to take The Stand to try to help terminate parental rights.  During one case where it looked like the judge might return the kids to their mom, my friend Rose (who wanted to adopt them) kept getting Madder.      The homes these children come from are so Macabre.  In one, the ceilings & walls were actually caving in.  It was a real Wasteland!  The children live in Misery.  Most of the kids I got were such Needful Things.      The last child I had was a 6-year-old boy who was always in a Rage.      By the time I would get to bed, it was usually Four Past Midnight.  Since I suffer from Insomnia, & my husband worked the Night Shift, I usually stayed up reading or writing.      One of my first teen girls had a boyfriend named Gerald.  He didn't treat her very well & I told her not to play his Game.  She broke up with him shortly afterward, & met a wonderful guy named Richard.      Another teens little son couldn't say grandma & used to call me Mochman - (I don't know where he got that from...)      Doing foster care was rewarding though.  One foster child bought me a double-headed Dragon, & you should see it's Eyes!      My van was 4 years old & had over 120,000 miles on it.  Whenever I had to take the kids to the agency or to counciling, I'd put it in Maximum Overdrive & pray!      Earlier I mentioned my husband...  Jim is a Hungarian & I like to call him my Gypsy.  One of my hobbies is baking, especially Bubbly Pies.  Isn't food one way to a man's heart?  Anyway, a couple of years ago he convinced me to take The Long Walk & get married.  I've been married twice before & was a little bit afraid...  I hope this one won't end up in The Dead Zone...  (It did...)      Jim had custody of his 10 year old daughter & one year we rented ponies & a clown for her birthday party.  I'm not sure if the clown was a he or a she, but IT sure was a big hit!  It even passed out Balloons!      I was a very Introverted child.  My mother never talked to me about the facts of life, but I don't CARe.  I think I turned out just fine!      I'm very active & I spend a lot of time outside during all of the Different Seasons.      I feel that I am a very compassionate, loving person & yet sometimes I know that I have this Dark Half...  It's like I close my eyes & I can see a real Creepshow.      There was a crisis in my life that made it necessary for me to obtain a couple of pistols & learn how to shoot.  I'm proud to say I've become a very good Gunslinger!      When the day is over, I'd like nothing better then to climb into a Dark Tower with my reading lamp, Stephen King Library & get lost in some Nightmares & Dreamscapes.  I hope to spend my Golden Years still reading your novels.  Tabitha is a lucky woman to be the Stephen King Companion & grow older with you!      That's about enough of this outlandish fun!  I guess I'll bite the Silver Bullet & stop this nonsense.  But whether you believe it or not, what you've just read is truely my life.  If I tried to incorporate any more, I'd have to start making it up!  And I've sometimes been told that I live in enough of a fantasy world. Letter © 1998 Page © 2000 - 2017 All Rights Reserved: CHARLENE HANCZ