New Serializations of Ypsilanti Diaries Imminent

Dusty Diary would like to go back in time and supply each and every Ypsilanti diarist with a lifetime supply of Office Max ink gel pens. J. R. Mowry: I'm looking at you, Ann Arbor Township farmer. With all due respect, sir, pencil neither cuts it nor photocopies well. Also, I've gathered that you take the milk to Ypsilanti every day. Since it's mentioned. Again. And again. Still, it's your diary, so whatever. I do smile when you say that you put your sons to work in the beans and the corn while you "rest in the shade and didn't do much."

Florence Smalley, no more pencils for you either. Also, I know you're just a child, dear, but you must strive for better penmanship. In addition, you failed to keep your diary safe from, apparently, your little brother, who scribbled all through the second half. Though the little pictures of the chickens and the yard pump are cute, and the lady in the hammock. I hope that's your mom, resting up after bringing home a wagonload of gel pens.

Evangeline Lewis: You were the literary star in high school--I've read your essays in the old yearbooks, and have seen your confident, smiling portrait--and you certainly are wordy. Wordy, wordy, wordywordywordywordywordy. I've read enough about tennis to learn the game's finest intricacies. And you're constantly chatting about flitting about with this friend and that friend and a jaunt to here and another thing and something over there, and--FOCUS PLEASE. Though I will say your diary is the most sensible in design. The "Line-A-Day" system presents four spaces for each day of the year for four years' worth of reflections. That's cool as you can see what you were doing on previous years as it slowly fills up. Good choice; I wouldn't mind one myself. And, praise be, you used ink pens.

The two ongoing year-long serializations of Carrie Hardy and Allie McCullough's diaries are about to run out. Yes--it's already been a year! Will yours, Evangeline, be the diary that's chosen as the successor to our present ones when readers vote in a few days? Or will it be Farmer Mowry's? Or Florence's? We shall see.