Feeling Like A Millionaire...

Folks - I had one of those millionaire days this week. That's a day when you would do exactly what you were doing, even if you were a millionaire. My millionaire moments came in a visit to Alexander's first-grade class. I took the opportunity to thank my son's classmates and teachers for their tremendous kindness when I was bedded down in NYU recovering from liver transplant. Nancy brought to me in the hospital a huge, poster-sized letter that the teacher wrote, using their words and it was adorned with their drawings of chirping birds. We hung it on the wall of my room, near my medical chart, and the doctors - although busy - stopped and read it each day. It never failed to lift my spirits of theirs.

''Dear Mr. Bird: We are so happy you are better! Congratulations, Mr. Bird! We are Alexander's friends. Alexander told us how nice everyone has been. He told us about your liver. Your friends, George, Robert, Alexander, Alex, Brian and Chris.''

The doctors kidded me about whether I would go in to the class and display my 'Mercedes' logo-shaped scar for ''show and tell.''

Well, not quite. But I did share a fair bit of myself. Over the past months, I've been scribbling thoughts and notes in books and sometimes - in the middle of the night - on paper towels in the bathroom. These snippets all came together on a walk in the woods and I banged out a 1,200-word manuscript of a children's book titled ''A Feather In The Woods.'' In it, a boy and his father have a close bond and share a deep love of nature, considering feathers found in the woods to be special gifts. ''Find a feather and you'll always feel better,'' the Dad in the book says. In the story, the son finds a feather from a mysterious bird and helps his hospitalized father recover from a serious illness.

With a bit of trepidation, I read the manuscript to the class and I'm glad to say they loved it. Now, it's not the most objective bunch of critics, but it was nice to get their ''A+ + + +'' grade in another poster-sized letter from the class. It would be a dream come true to have the book published (anybody got any connections?) But as I told Alexander and friends, even if it goes no further than their classroom, it was worth doing. One of those millionaire days...I wish them for all of you.