It’s a cliché by now that nobody writes letters anymore.
They started saying it when e-mail took over, and e-mail became email when txts
took over. No one saves either e-mail or texts, unless they are old obsessives
like me. But back when people did write letters, other people saved them, on
whatever pieces of paper, or stationery, or notepads they were written on.
When I went
off to college in 1960, I wrote letters home, to my parents, and occasionally
to my brother and/or sister. My mother saved them. Sometime in the past, [possibly
when they sold their house in Pennsylvania and moved south, eventually landing
in Florida,] she sent them back to me. [I’m guessing about the timing because
one folder is all my letters from the 1960s, and they moved south in 1970, but
maybe I’m wrong about this. Need to check what other letters of mine are filed
away]
I only
recently began to reread them, and that is a fascinating exercise. First of
all, I can see the seeds of my eventual career as a copy editor in my first
letter questioning the spelling of the word “dillys” (I was describing the
evaluation tests all the freshmen took to see what courses we would have to
take for general education credits, which I said were “real dillys”; without
looking it up in a dictionary, I’m guessing it perhaps could be “dillies,”
though that looks wrong, too). On the other hand, I misspelled other words
without wondering about them: “dissapated,” “deroggatory.”
Second, all
that ancient slang! “Kooky characters,” “they are all nuts,” “skuzzy bunch of
boys.” And not so ancient I definitely used “hysterical” to mean “hilarious”—is
that when that started, or have people been using hysterical instead of
hilarious long before 1960?
Then there
are the scenes I don’t remember. In my letter to my brother, I mention meeting
another freshman from the next town over from ours outside of Philadelphia. He
knew many of my brother’s friends and said he was their business manager; I
think they were in a band. And I express astonishment that one of those boys is
a Merit Scholarship semi-finalist.
And the
scenes I do remember, once I read what I wrote about them. One night at dinner
that first week an upperclassman sat at our table and introduced himself as a
foreign student, though it was obvious he wasn’t. This is what I described:
“Then he started talking Russian to me. He had a glass of water, and suddenly
he put it to his lips and tipped his head back, as though he were drinking. But
the glass was empty. He said he was looking at the lights, that’s the way they
did things in his country. Then he asked us what country we came from.” My
roommate and I thought this was one of the funniest things we’d ever seen, and
I do vaguely remember it.
Then there
are the scenes I remember, but which I remembered in widely different
circumstances. The Josh White concert, for instance. In my memory, this was
probably my second year, or even third year, and I was on a date. I remembered
this because during one of his encores, a string broke, and White continued
singing as he restrung the guitar, without missing a beat. But the evidence
from my letters says this happened my first week at school, and I know I did
not have a date that early in my college career. This is one of many
experiences that have taught me the fallability of memory.
-->
I plan to
continue writing about my discoveries in my letters that I hope will be
interesting to strangers.
-->
--------------------------------------------------------------
This year there is
another essay a week challenge, 52EssaysNextWave. If you’d like to try it, go
to the Facebook page for 52EssaysNextWave and sign up. Or just read some of the
essays that will be linked to there.
