My first, if memory serves, was a critique of a traffic situation in Burlington, Vermont.

I was in high school when I submitted it to the Burlington Free Press. It got printed. I remember the headline because it amused my father: "Chaos on North Champlain St."

But I remember my second one for a different reason.

That letter, submitted in the summer of 1973, questioned the seemingly high salaries of staffers working for Sen. Patrick Leahy.

I didn't know what I was talking about.

As it happens, one of those staffers later died on July 31 of that year when Delta Flight 723 (Burlington to Boston, with one stop in Manchester, N.H.) undershot a runway at Boston's Logan Airport and hit a concrete seawall.

A few weeks later, I met my first college roommate. He turned out to be the younger brother of the ill-fated Leahy staffer.

Even more unbelievable is the fact that my roommate's mother had put my stupid letter to the editor in a scrapbook. And when the college had sent out pre-orientation materials (including the name and address of your upcoming roommate), his mom had wondered if I was the same numbskull who had whined in print about Senate office salaries.

To his credit, my roommate never held it against me.

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