learning something new

I am testing to see if I can post longer sections of writing and give you the choice to open or not. This is from a new essay on my dad and the FBI.

Here's a test:

I open my mailbox and there it is, a solid brown envelope addressed by hand, with “U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation” in the corner. “Official Business,” it says. “Penalty for Private Use $300.” 

A few months before, I’d written to the FBI and asked them to release any files they might have on my father. Though my dad left New York City, his birthplace, for Canada in 1950 at the age of twenty-seven and never lived in the U.S. again, I suspected that American authorities might have maintained an interest in this fiercely outspoken socialist. After his far too early death at sixty-five, I hugely regretted not asking him about his life, career, and activism, not finding out who he was as a young man, during my early childhood. I wanted to learn more about him.