Every Friday I send out a real love letter that I’ve transcribed from a stack I bought at the flea market. Missed one? Check the chronological list.
If love letters aren’t your thing, don’t fret. More View-Master and related content is coming soon!
We have a PLOT TWIST. Not entirely unexpected but darkly hilarious (fortuitous for us nosey people?) all the same.
The envelope of this letter tells me Russ’s return address is back in Evergreen Park, Ill., (presumably at his parent’s house, the best place in the world to live and recover from colitis) and Karen’s address is at the Women’s Residence Hall … down in Champaign at the University of Illinois! It’s a location switcheroo! She’s where he was, he’s back home where she lived last year.
And we have a time gap. This letter picks up five whole months after his last letter. Let us assume our two lovebirds have spent the summer love-birding!
Sept. 9, 1961
Darling Kay,
This evening has been most frustrating. The power supply which I have been trying to build and for which I have finally gotten all the parts for didn’t work. Principally because the filter capacitor I used broke down. And the control pot I used was an abortive piece of engineering which I finally damaged while fooling around with it. For the pot, I have a temporary replacement in stock. For the capacitor, no.
It's like my husband wrote this one. I have no idea what’s happening, but it seems to involve tinkering in a garage.
I also tried to fix the fan on my tape recorder. I fixed it. That is to say it doesn’t make as much noise as before, but I don’t know how I did fix it. It wasn’t loose as I had thought. It seems that taking it out of this case (the chassis) cured part of the trouble. I can’t figure out what the remainder of the trouble is.
Tomorrow I will get a replacement capacitor and maybe the power supply will work.
*the potentiometer or rheostat [ARE THESE WORDS MADE UP? What does this refer to? I have no idea.]
I got the remaining parts for my mixer also and if the power supply works I can finish that, and hope that works.
He really is all senior citizen vibes.
I thought of calling you, but decided that that would lead to my coming over and it would be better for the general [I’m guessing that’s her father or maybe a joke about her mother?] if I didn’t. Also, and more important, It would be easier on us if we just left it as it was last night.
Then the realization comes slower and is easier to take. I know that it isn’t as bad when I know that you’re not too far away. The further away you are the more I miss you, and this way the shock is not so sudden.
It's reasonable that distance should make such a difference in the way I feel because you are such a part of me, an integral part. And the greater the separation between two things, the less is their combined efficiency. The more difficult is the rapport between them, and the less is the happiness and contentment of each.
Fortunately, we will not be so far apart that being together is a mountainous undertaking. We will have some opportunity, and that is the only thing that serves as a light in a dark future. I still don’t believe, or rather can’t conceive of the fact that I won’t see you next weekend and won’t call you this week to let you know what time to be ready and where we’re going.
This, to me, all reads as an overall richer relationship than they had last year. They’re quite serious about each other now.
But you are going, and I won’t see you next weekend. I can say it, and put it on paper, but — at least I have the consolation of knowing that I’m with you in mind and spirit, if not in body. And I am, you know. Everyday, every minute. I’ll be right with you. Through every class and every exam, I’ll be there to help and give you support. No matter what problems you may have, we’ll both work them out, although you’ll have to do all the talking, etc. And we make a good team. So, if you get a little discouraged or lonely, just remember I’m right there to lean on, to share in everything. There are very few people who can claim to be that close to another, but I can and do and can think of no one more deserving of this support.
Ugh, this is so sweet, and I also hate it because I’m a child of divorce and this makes my skin crawl kinda. THIS IS A ME PROBLEM, I KNOW. Please feel free to luxuriate in this emotional intimacy but keep it among yourselves.
This, more or less then, is this letter. Tomorrow, there will be more. Right now, it’s pretty late (or rather early in the morning), and I can’t sleep all day tomorrow. I wish so much that I was coming down with you tomorrow. To show you around and help you out at registration and make sure you are tucked safely in bed at night (so to speak: the housemothers would not look too agreeably upon a literal completion of tucking you in). But I’m not, so there’s no use crying over spilt milk.
Damn, this has gotta hurt him! He lost his marbles and his tummy down in Champaign, and now she’s going off to give it a shot! I gotta give it up: Lots of dudes couldn’t handle this now let alone a conservative young dude in 1961! He’s taking it like a champ, I think. Better than I would have guessed.
All of my correspondence will be numbered consecutively. My next letter will take up where this one left off. Sometime soon a letter will be devoted to a lengthy opening of our correspondence. It will be the general opening for the whole set of letters. And the last letter or so will be the general closing of the set.
He just had to make it weird.
Meanwhile, take real good care of yourself, sweet dreams and sleep tight. And don’t worry about your courses. The U of I will never present anything you can’t lick. It’s not an impossible school.
(Except for Russ it was?)
Good luck, sweetheart,
All my love and kisses,
Russ
I’m only reading one letter ahead at this point, and I’m excited about how this will change his tone and the overall dynamic!
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