The Carrollton Chronicle;l Carrollton, TX - August 29, 1958
 

Love Tales as Told to Mr. Sentimental
BY PAMELA WARRICK
APRIL 28, 1997 12 AM PT
TIMES STAFF WRITER
Here’s what author Robert Fulghum did to research his latest book.

He made a sign and wrote on it in big letters, “Tell me a short love story and I will buy you coffee and make you famous.”

Then he carried the sign around to some Seattle espresso houses, a couple of bars and a neighborhood fair and recorded what people told him. Fulghum, whose first book “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” (Villard Books, 1988), made him about $2 million, always drew a crowd. Despite critics who dismiss his homespun lump-in-the-throat essays as so much philosophical tofu, readers around the world adore Fulghum’s unabashed sentimentality.

Fulghum has two love stories of his own. The first one began in 1957 when he married Marcia McClellan. His second began about 25 years later when he met Dr. Lynn Edwards in a Zen Buddhist monastery and, after divorcing the mother of his three children, made her his second wife.

But you won’t find those love stories in “Love Stories” (HarperCollins). Instead, Fulghum treats readers to 57 other people’s stories. In his introduction, the 59-year-old author warns that a good true love story, like true love itself, is a whole lot easier to get started than it is to end.

In that spirit, here is a sampling of some of the beginnings of some of the love stories Fulghum collected, both promising and un- :

* “This is a story about how pajamas made me lose and find my mind.”

* “When I was a junior in college I took a course in the writing of D.H. Lawrence. I know this sounds really stupid, but I thought this was about Lawrence of Arabia. . . . I was not fully alert in college.”

* “Tammy and I met at work. We did lunches and coffee breaks for about a week before our first conversation took place outside of that ‘controlled environment.’ At that time, Tammy was in recovery for addiction.”

* “Dear Billy, if you dont say you love me and walk to the bus top with me I will killmyself and beet you up. I love you and wan to marry you soon. Susy.”

* “My dearest Harry:

“I hate you. I hate you. I hate you.

“Respectfully, with all my love, Edna.”

Oh, well. As Fulghum concludes, “Love is never final--there’s always a sequel or the hope for one.”