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. There’s more View-Master and related content coming soon!
January 12, 1961
Dearest Kay,
This seemed to be a good time to write a letter, while lounging here listening to the radio. No, I’m not in the dorm, I’m in ROTC class. The instructor’s a cool fella. As a matter, his is one of the few classes I actually enjoy. He is fully aware that we are not all crazy about military. Neither is he. He likes the army, but not the military part.
Americans are complex.
This is Thursday, and tonight I have an hour exam in Physics. Happy thought.
A really happy thought, which, incidentally, actually aided some recovery from my headache, was your phone call. I came very close to missing your call. I had just come back to the room shortly before and had gone out to get a drink of water. The guy in the room next to mine called me to the phone. At least you got through to the switchboard. That in itself was an accomplishment.
Please give details relevant to your schedule so I that I may plan to monopolize any and all free time. Especially the alumni meeting you mentioned. Have to continue this later. He’s starting to give the lecture. He is inclined that way occasionally…
He picks the letter up…
Later — after the physics hourly as a matter of fact.
Typical Physics hour exam. Completely confusing and ultimately annoying. However, with that out of the way, I can rest easier, in a manner of speaking. Would rather have had the exam tomorrow night. Oh, well!
I’m all fired up with enthusiasm for studying now. Don’t know why, I just am. Maybe I can make it this semester. Much depends on my confab with the dean tomorrow.
I wish he’d mention his actual grades.
What do you mean you won’t make it this semester? Of course you will. You haven’t been averaging 4-5 hours sleep per night all semester for nothing. Besides, you have a decided edge in intelligence with which to come out on top in competition with the rest of the students at St. Xav’s.
Aww. He really does boost her up a lot. Except he’s also kind of insulting her school. Are these the love letters of two miserable people who only actually like each other? In my mind that’s kind of sweet.
I may have to petition to get back into the university next semester, which would probably a 4.0 terminal probation. Happy thought. Should that happen, I will not take the worst flunk-out courses this university offers. Everytime I tell people my schedule they get a shocked look and then offer some sympathetic remark. And that without the added “stimulation” of a math instructor with no principles whatsoever. My advisor must have been crazy. So must I have been. He tries. All the time he tries. He’s a maniac. And so will I be if this pressure does not relent. Fortunately, there are only 14 days to go before I hit home territory.
I’ll look into getting another pin tomorrow, although since I may not be in MRH next semester this has dubious value. I should be here next semester. Correction, I will be, so it doesn’t make much of a difference if I’m here next semester and get out of MRH next fall, you’ll be tired of the MRH pin by then anyway and will appreciate a replacement.
I don’t actually know what MRH stands for in his letters, but today there is a Marie Robinson Hall at University of Illinois. Not clear if there was one in 1960?
Regardless, being “pinned” is effectively being engaged to be engaged within the Greek system on college campuses. A boy would take his fraternity pin and place it on a gal as a symbol of commitment. It was a Big Deal on campuses where “co-education” was becoming the norm from the 1940s through the 1960s. For a high-minded discussion of what all that meant, check this out.
This is being written in the MRH Canteen, that great meeting place of MRHers and waster-of time for students in denial. I’ll have to eat dinner eventually since I missed it at the dorm studying for that exam. However, the canteen is not the place to eat dinner. There are other places with better food and prices. We don’t have to pay tax here, but it’s made up for in other ways.
This is a dull letter, isn’t it? It really doesn’t say much, I know, but I think what little creativity I had left went into the previous letters, which I hope you received. I should have addressed it correctly and put the right amount of postage on it, etc.
I wish you were here. Trite (due to the song of the same title), but true.
Imagine growing up with this Eddie Fisher song and not the Pink Floyd one as your Wish You Were Here song reference? The 1950s don’t seem like much fun to me.
(Which phrase is also trite, but true — could go on forever.) In any case, I wish you were here. ‘Twould make my life much easier. It would add much of what I lack right now, namely you. We could be college students together and you would provide the inspiration that every student needs once in a while.
But that seems to be a dream, and nothing more. I keep hoping though. I think I’ll head back to the dorm. I can take you with me in this case — figuratively, of course. Will continue this “student essay” there.
And the letter ends abruptly but starts up the following day (and we’ll pick that up in two weeks since I’m taking Good Friday off!).
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Hey for what it's worth Rebecca, I really enjoy these love letter dissections. View-Master, meh.. been there done that. It's a trip to look back in time. These people had no idea what was coming.