Love makes the world go round

I want to talk today about rules. As in: Walk only when the light is green, stand up when the national anthem is played and never, ever rip that “Don’t Remove Under Penalty of Law” tag off your mattress. There are things that are expected of you in civilized society, and these are just three of the most obvious.

Here’s another one: In the past weeks, we here at The Spokesman-Review — the most widely circulated beacon of a free press between Seattle and Minneapolis — have overseen a Love Letters contest. We asked readers to follow a few simple rules: write original compositions of “no more than 200 words (roughly two-thirds of a standard-size sheet of paper, double-spaced, 12-point font) … and avoid using language that can’t be published in a family newspaper.”

Nothing in recent memory attracted such a big response. Some 386 writers sent in entries. But here was the complicated part: Many of the letters treated the contest rules more as guidelines than as commandments . Some included photographs. Some were stories rather than letters addressed to a person, place or thing. A large number were longer than the required 200-word limit. And several of the best were in that latter category.

Case in point: our overall winner, 81-year-old Jacquelyn Petty of Spokane. Petty wrote a stream-of-consciousness profession of love to her 81-year-old husband of 60 years, Dwight. She wrote of their meeting as 18-year-olds, of their being separated by World War II (during which Dwight was at Guadalcanal) , of eloping when he returned and of maintaining a marriage over the decades in which each still gets a thrill simply greeting another day together.

Petty’s was far and away the best of the lot. Hers was the only one mentioned on every one of the five judges’ ballots. And yet she broke the rules. What to do? Well, we did what any reasonable person would do under the circumstances. We made an exception. We decided to celebrate the love that two octogenarians have for each other rather than simply adhere to a rule that had been set up in the first place as a means of convenience. We opted to do the human thing rather than act like elementary-school disciplinarians .

And we received a few letters taking us to task for it. Not fair, some said. “Kind of ironic,” another wrote, “that in this political season the Spokesman shows us, once again, that the winners in our society are those who ignore the rules.” Well, OK. We apologize. To anyone however inconvenienced or offended by our lapse of law, we sincerely apologize. Really.

All I’m going to add is that tonight, when I wrestle with my conscience in the darkest corners of my soul , I’m pretty sure that I’ll be able to sleep easy. Unless, of course, I inadvertently pull off that mattress tag.