No more holiday newsletter envy for me!

This Christmas I received many, many newsletter updates about my friends, their families and their lives.

I enjoy these epistles, but I come away from them feeling inadequate, which is a nice way of saying I come away from them feeling like an abject failure. My life is only a pale shadow of their exciting travels and accomplishments.

Therefore, next year I will send a newsletter of my own. This is what it will say:

“Greetings from Stockholm, where I am receiving the Nobel Prize for chemistry. I thought to invite you, but only people with IQs above 185 are allowed.

I not only conquered my fear of flying but received my commercial airline pilot’s license, which enabled me to ferry the president and his concubine aboard the Concorde on a fact-finding tour of various South Pacific tropical paradises.

And that little weight problem I grappled with last year? Not only did I get back into shape, I recently posed for the Mr. November foldout of the Under Gear catalog. Good thing my washboard abs were honed to a glistening edge by personal trainer, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

My goal for the coming year is to occupy the top 10 positions on the New York Times best seller list – simultaneously.

My wife, Carolyn Murphy the supermodel, finished that show in Milan and came home to complete her doctorate’s – magna cum laude of course – in cosmology. She will complete her Grand Unification Theory aboard the International Space Station, once she’s finished carving that sculpture of the president into Mount Rushmore.

Our daughter, Zelda, recently won the best actress Academy Award for her portrayal of Juliet Capulet in James Cameron’s new movie, “Shakespeare vs. The Terminator,” which grossed over $2 billion in worldwide ticket receipts. Now it’s back to Oxford – assuming they grant her tenure. If not, she’s been asked to serve a term as prime minister of Japan.

Meanwhile, our son Abercrombie defeated the Russian Federation representative for the world chess crown and recently established radio contact with the Antareans, a race of superbeings who inhabit a distant planet and have promised to share their secrets of immortality and galactic peace with humanity. He’s a clever scamp. Now if I could only get him to make his bed.

Even the family dog, Clytemnestra, has news. She received a presidential citation for leading the passengers and crew of a grounded cruise liner to safety, and recently disarmed a gang of thugs she discovered in the house trying to make off with the Spode. If you see her story on “60 Minutes,” pay close attention to the tile in the entryway – it’s Tuscany, and I quarried, cut, polished and laid it myself (with a little help from Bob Vila).

Lastly, our house has been declared a national sanctuary by federal wildlife officials after a rare orchid, thought to have been extinct 100 million years ago, was discovered growing in our back yard amidst the kiwi grove.

Well, enough about me and my family. How was our tawdry, hollow shell of an existence for the year?”

This column was published in the Dec. 30, 1998 edition of the Northwest Florida Daily News and is used with permission.

About the author:

Del Stone Jr. is a professional fiction writer. He is known primarily for his work in the contemporary dark fiction field, but has also published science fiction and contemporary fantasy. Stone’s stories, poetry and scripts have appeared in publications such as Amazing Stories, Eldritch Tales, and Bantam-Spectra’s Full Spectrum. His short fiction has been published in The Year’s Best Horror Stories XXII; Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine; the Pocket Books anthology More Phobias; the Barnes & Noble anthologies 100 Wicked Little Witch Stories, Horrors! 365 Scary Stories, and 100 Astounding Little Alien Stories; the HWA anthology Psychos; and other short fiction venues, like Blood Muse, Live Without a Net, Zombiesque and Sex Macabre. Stone’s comic book debut was in the Clive Barker series of books, Hellraiser, published by Marvel/Epic and reprinted in The Best of Hellraiser anthology. He has also published stories in Penthouse Comix, and worked with artist Dave Dorman on many projects, including the illustrated novella “Roadkill,” a short story for the Andrew Vachss anthology Underground from Dark Horse, an ashcan titled “December” for Hero Illustrated, and several of Dorman’s Wasted Lands novellas and comics, such as Rail from Image and “The Uninvited.” Stone’s novel, Dead Heat, won the 1996 International Horror Guild’s award for best first novel and was a runner-up for the Bram Stoker Award. Stone has also been a finalist for the IHG award for short fiction, the British Fantasy Award for best novella, and a semifinalist for the Nebula and Writers of the Future awards. His stories have appeared in anthologies that have won the Bram Stoker Award and the World Fantasy Award. Two of his works were optioned for film, the novella “Black Tide” and short story “Crisis Line.”

Stone recently retired after a 41-year career in journalism. He won numerous awards for his work, and in 1986 was named Florida’s best columnist in his circulation division by the Florida Society of Newspaper Editors. In 2001 he received an honorable mention from the National Lesbian and Gay Journalists Association for his essay “When Freedom of Speech Ends” and in 2003 he was voted Best of the Best in the category of columnists by Emerald Coast Magazine. He participated in book signings and awareness campaigns, and was a guest on local television and radio programs.

As an addendum, Stone is single, kills tomatoes and morning glories with ruthless efficiency, once tied the stem of a cocktail cherry in a knot with his tongue, and carries a permanent scar on his chest after having been shot with a paintball gun. He’s in his 60s as of this writing but doesn’t look a day over 94.

Contact Del at [email protected]. He is also on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, TikTok, Ello and Instagram. Visit his website at delstonejr.com .