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.
September 18, 1961
Darling Kay,
My attempt at anything appears to be one massive struggle. The last week has been one busy week. But the results are not too great, and it seems to me all could have been accomplished with much less waste of time and trouble.
Monday night I registered for my night school courses and, of course, left my checkbook at home, necessitating the paying of my tuition with a blank check, which wasn’t covered anyway. $1.00 service charge for blank check. However, IIT deposited my check and the bank returned it before I covered it. Therefore, the bank charged me a $1.00 “service” charge for the redeposit of the check. They waived the $1 charge for the blank check. Darn white of them ———
So, this letter seems to be written hastily and parsing every word has been a challenge. Based on what I could sus out, he says “darn white of the - - -” and I am not clear if I have that correct! It’s weirdly hilarious if he’s basically saying “that’s mighty white of them” in an ironic way, but it seems unlikely in 1961? I just don’t know! I could be misreading it entirely! Lemme know if I’m missing the mark and this is some terrible thing to say in 1961.
So now IIT has charged me $1 for redepositing the check and the bank will charge me another $1 for the blank check for a grand total of $3.
These bank fees are laughable. Also, dude, stop writing bad checks! You’re gonna end up in jail. Back in the day, I accidentally bounced a check to my friend when she paid for us all to get Billy Joel concert tickets. 🎟 She gave me the returned check in a gift bag and told me the concert was my birthday present. Ha! I was sooo embarrassed.
Registration here is just like Illinois — so is the red tape run around.
But first, Friday I came to the bookstore here to buy my texts. Every Friday night the bookstore is open except during registration week for some ungodly reason.
Today I started on the job of straightening out my rubber check. I started with the office of admissions as a likely suspect, from there to the registrar to the bursar, who was closed. After waiting till 6 p.m. (My class started at 6:45 p.m.) I tried the bursar’s office again, still closed. At 6:10 p.m. it had shown no signs of opening, so I asked someone from an associated department if the bursar’s office would ever open again. He said they had moved downstairs to process late registration receipts and the bursar was down there — someplace. Back downstairs, two offices and several people later, I found the bursar, who took my name and my money and assured me he would redeposit my check, and that my registration had not been affected.
This is just another example of how hard everything used to be. I went to college in the 1990s and between the stress of waiting on my student loan money to pay for my books (let alone my classes), and having to do everything in person, it was insanely stressful! One year my student loan money didn’t show up until two full weeks into the semester and I didn’t have the cash to get my textbooks! I was *thisclose* to dropping out because I was already falling behind! Maddening!
While waiting for the person of the illustrious bursar, I tried to find my classroom. Chapin Hall consists of 4 units.
Now 9/20/61 —
On the first floor, units 2, 3, & 4 are connected. On the second, 1&2, and part of 3 are connected. On the third, 1 & 2 are connected, three and four are separated. The fourth floor rooms are all separate and resemble attics but are in reality classrooms. The room numbers start in unit 2 and increase through unit 4, the highest numbers are back in unit 1. There are five outside doors, unit 1 has one door and the other four are entrances into who knows what unit.
It took me a half hour to find my classroom. Fortunately, I had anticipated some confused architecture and allowed an hour.
Did he attend class at the Winchester Mansion?
After class, I went to buy my textbooks. After getting them, which involved no small amount of searching, I was about to pay for them and lo and behold—I had lost my wallet. So, I wrote another rubber check and left for home.
Lordy, Russ is a mess!
My wallet I got back yesterday. One of the students gave it to my instructor and he called the house and since I wasn’t home yet, left word that he had my wallet and I could call him when I got home, which I did and we made arrangements for me to pick it up where he worked — during the day.
Losing my wallet means losing my CTA pass, my driver’s liscence, (that word seems wrong (spelling) but then I never could get it right), my union card, my student ID, my checking account number, draft card, civil defense card, and several minor cards and, most important of all, your pictures.
All in all, a maddening loss, which did not help my already somewhat frayed disposition.
This letter then shifts gears but is pretty long! I’m gonna send the rest next week!
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It was not uncommon to say mighty white of you in that time. I was born in ‘56. The word police and cancel culture didn’t start until way way after that. The ironic thing is that words nobody would dare even think, much less say out loud are now perfectly acceptable, even from the mouths of children. Mainly the F bomb and words for genitalia and sex acts. Kinda wonder who’s running the Central Censor Department.