To: Rev. Peter Hodgson, Independence, MO

From: Bobby Cox, Colorado Springs, CO

April 24, 20+7

Reverend Hodgson,

This is Bobby Cox, from Colorado Springs. Not sure if you remember me, but my folks and me were members of your church there in Independence. I’m writing you today for a few different reasons, so I’d appreciate it if you could bear with me a bit while I work through them all.

First, I haven’t heard from my parents for almost six months. It might be just that they didn’t want to send me any mail in the winter time because that’s when it costs so much more to send anything, but it’s spring now and I had hoped to hear something from them, and they always used to send me a letter every couple months, at least. Have you heard from them, talked to them or their neighbors or friends at all or know where they might be right now? Neil and Nancy Wright are a couple people my parents are friends with, and they’re in your church, too. And I think my folks know a Mr. Whitman who used to be in your church, but is now a Methodist or something. Not sure which church he’s in now. I know this isn’t your job at all, but can you ask around to see if you can find him or the Wrights, and if so ask them to contact my folks and/or me?

I’m not all that nervous about this being the case, but my parents are a lot older than some people out here in Colorado Springs that I know or know of who died. OK, I guess that does make me a little nervous, because most things have been not all that bad out here to be for the last five or six years, particularly climate-wise. And I know the heat and humidity out in your neighborhood is so much worse than it is here. It just... I hope they haven’t been overexerting themselves in the heat, or if so, that they’ll at least consider slowing down a bit. (I actually tried getting them to move out here with me a couple years ago – no offense to your or Independence, of course – for reasons including the less humid summers. As is obvious, they turned me down. Please forgive me for not filling you in on the fine details of that exchange at this moment.)

I guess if you do see my parents, would you please pass this letter or at least the gist of it to them, mainly just to tell them how I’ve been and to please get in touch with me.

I have been OK lately. Been much better, been a bit worse. Glad I had bought a condo with a southern exposure. Get a lot more light and warmth in the winter that way. Could be a bit closer to a decent water source. Fountain creek just doesn’t cut the mustard, ‘cause there’s tons of bums and now some gang members who use it as their personal toilet. Filthy, verminous people. Of course, things will get a lot better waterwise in the summer time. The thunderstorms still roll over Cheyenne mountain in early afternoon. (If I had a watch that still worked, I’d probably be able to set it by the minute the rain started.) I can usually get a few gallons every afternoon it rains using a big bucket at the end of my gutter. (A homebrewing bucket a “friend” of mine bought me years ago. Well, I have neither the extra money nor the motivation now to spend my time and effort making something that will simply poison me. Took me too long to figure that out for myself.) Don’t even have to share the runoff with my condo neighbors, as they started doing the same thing just a year or two ago. Makes it that much easier to stay clean and have drinking and cooking water.

I have been using my old books and magazines and old college papers and notebooks to cook food in my hibachi on the patio. I know my folks always disapproved of that, thought what I wrote and the books might be important some day, but cooking what food I can come across is more important than my undergraduate essays on the beatific imagination of Taylor Caldwell. (She did write so wonderfully about the savior’s redeeming power, but the grades I got were never that great.) I use the papers and such only to cook from time to time, to conserve them as fuel. Also, I still have all my old warmies to bundle up in during the winter, so I don’t really have to build a fire to heat the condo. Still gets pretty darn cold, I can tell you that, even with the southern exposure. I’ve heard that there are solar heater window type things that people can install that will really help heat up the area they’re attached to, but have neither the money to buy one or the materials or expertise to make and install one myself.

I guess I have been eating well enough. A few blocks away from the condo is Memorial Park. Well, I don’t know if you ever visited Colorado Springs, much less that area, but if you saw it now you wouldn’t recognize it at all. It’s a gigantic community garden now, with staples like corn and beans, tomatoes and chilies and just tons of other stuff. More and more every year. The apple trees that got planted have grown so-so and haven’t fruited yet. It’s been almost four years now, so we expect they’ll fruit soon. The cherry trees have done OK, took a rather meager harvest off them last year. Hope to get more this coming summer. The blooms look good so far this spring.

We even took out the firefighter memorial and all the concrete that surrounded it, converted the ball fields and everything to get more space for gardening. We need every inch of space that we can get because the harvest has to be split many hundred, maybe several thousand ways. I don’t know all that much about how it get split up, but as a laborer I get a decent share. (My folks know a lot of this I’m pretty sure. I just want to reassure them that I’m not starving. They worried about that, though, even when I was working at the base as a contractor for Lockheed-Martin. Seems like forever ago now.)

The fort really isn’t one anymore, hasn’t been for over four years now. It’s more like Ranch Carson now. There’s a little remnant of the military left, but it’s maybe a few hundred people. Just a garrison, and the rest of the land has been basically commandeered by the very folk that were pretty high up in the command structure to begin with. And so apparently they kept a lot of personnel occupied there, doing subsistence farming. Swords into plowshares, YES! The soil down that way doesn’t seem to produce quite as well, but I’ve heard those on the base get by OK.

There are those, and this is truly unfortunate, who left every semblance of civilization behind and have taken to looting and/or actually raiding the gardens and farms in and out of town. I can’t say that I understand why they feel this is a good thing for them to do. It only hurts others and themselves, in the long run. It seems to wax and wane according to the weather that year. It was pretty bad a couple years ago, when there was a bit of a drought on. They seemed to raid more frequently then, and were a lot more violent about it. Fortunately, their ilk is few in number, and they’ve never gotten truly organized. They seem more content to just thieve or even forcibly take food and then eat it down near Fountain creek, then defecate all over the place there. Scum... well, I’m sorry to have these feelings Reverend, but nothing anyone does seems to bring them around. I try to emulate Jesus best I can, but... God I am not. I think... hope you understand what I’m getting at.

Regardless, no one around here that I’m aware of has starved to death. And, so that’s one of the other reasons I’m writing to you. I have some questions that I’ve been unable to get answered by those around here, which is frustrating, because there are so many very knowledgeable biblical scholars and leaders in the Springs. It’s one of the reasons I moved out here, to be around such good people.

Well, so I guess the questions are all kind of tied together in a certain way. So let me just start in with one. Me and pretty much everyone else in town have had pretty much enough to eat. There have been some kind of lean times, especially with not having much meat at all, but we haven’t had mass starvation here that I’m aware of. I and the folks I work with have gotten word that a multitude of people further south in Texas and New Mexico and Arizona and south California have starved, though. And just a few years ago, some woman rode into town half-starved and asking which way to Pike’s Peak. Poor woman, ranting about floods and pleading for brandy and cheese. We got her settled down after a bit and she’s turned into a good worker. Barbara... can’t remember her last name. But my question is, so there’s famine in some places, but not everywhere?

As I mentioned above, we do get some violent people here from time to time, but there has been no sustained campaigns or organized murder or violence. I heard a rumor that China or maybe aliens are to blame for all the problems, but I really have my doubts about that. And I haven’t heard of the United States going to fight anyone in the last six or seven years, so I don’t think there’s been any war.

Now, a lot of people in Colorado Springs have died over the last six years, this is true. But we haven’t had any mass deaths, except for a rash of suicides a couple years ago. All those lost souls. But... there are still folks in plenty here, and a lot of them are having kids. I know that there are a few places, like Junction City and maybe Kansas City, where there’s been some bad fever or other disease outbreaks. Word broke last spring that Denver had a huge fire a few years back, but no word on how many died. Has Death just not gotten around to us the living yet?

Finally, I don’t know how metaphorical hell is. I mean, I’m sure it’s a real place and I don’t want to go there, but I haven’t seen it here in southern Colorado. I’d say “Well, maybe Pueblo”, but this isn’t really very funny stuff. Pueblo is actually doing well. Their mills are all shut down, but there was still a whole bunch of steel in them, and the buildings that housed them were taken apart pretty quickly to build solar heater panels like I mentioned above. I mean, I’ve heard that a lot of cities up north and east have been through a lot of rioting and violence. Like New York, Philadelphia and even Des Moines I heard. So, is hell inhumanity to man so far, and is it sweeping from the northeast to the southwest?

I mean, it seems that there are some Signs here, but not all of them like Scripture says there will be or in the way that Scripture says they’ll come. I’m not really anticipating seeing horrible men on horseback wielding swords, but I think I’m encountering things that are really indicative of the End Times... but not in the way I expected.

Is the rapture on its way? Did it maybe happen somewhere else, like Israel, and we missed it? Were we all not taken up... due to our own sins? Or has it not happened yet, and the main events in Revelations are going on elsewhere and we should just wait to be taken up? Are my folks still there with you?

Like I said, I asked around, questioned a lot of deacons and pastors of all denominations in town. I even asked the priest at St. John’s near Old Colorado City. I just couldn’t get a good answer, and it’s starting to drive me a bit crazy maybe. In thinking of my folks recently, you came to mind and I thought you could help. Also, wasn’t Jesus supposed to return to reclaim his throne in Independence? I’m not imagining this, am I?

Please write back as soon as you can, and God bless.

Yours in Christ, Bobby Cox