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CEHBates_Jan-June1920_095a
FIRST METHODIST CHURCH [centered] CLAUDE OREAR, Pastor [centered] ROANOKE, - ALABAMA [centered]
Jan 5 - 1920 -
My dear friend Bates --
Your letter was delayed in finding me but, by gum, it finally got to me. How glad I was to get it. It was like an oasis in a desert land. I have thought of you, old vet, a thousand and one times. And many times I said there I will write Bates a letter that will heap coals of fire upon his head for not writing me. Now what has happened? He beat me to it and here are coals of fire heaped upon my own head one inch thick and my hair singes and smells bad under this treatment but it served me rights. I am going to do better ever after.
Yes old pal I remember the road that had many turning but all y 'em "tuk" no nearer; to "der Woeht am Rhein." And Wasserbillig — yes it was a good service, and the book says "Where two or three," etc. 'Tenny rate I ares glad you held up my hands as did the children of Israel the hands of Moses. (See Bible)
Dear Bates — I hope you are cleansed ere this from all super fluidity & naughtiness (if any existed) and that both by speech and by example you point folks up hill. I am glad you are in school and from my observation it will never hurt you one whit but may
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FIRST METHODIST CHURCH [centered] CLAUDE OREAR, Pastor [centered] ROANOKE, - ALABAMA [centered]
"sorter" help. How goes it with your little French maiden with gazelle eyes. Do those eyes still affect you 3 or 4 thousands miles away. I regret that you are still feeling the effects of war. I am persuaded though that your condition is far better than if you had been left on no man's land. You never would have been able to step off the car with the Croix and the D.S.C. and salute the "pretty nutbrown maidens with eyes so tender tender blue" or words to that affect [effect].
How is the U of Cal.? Is it still high as to rank? How does it stand as compared with Chi. my old alma mater? [SMILEY FACE DRAWN] O for Quist to be here to talk about you. I can't?, 'or perchance this May. Martin.
Well I am in the above city — slinging the gospills in allopathic doses to all. I am telling how if their sins should be as scarlet — that they may be made as white as snow Selah! "The fallen" [drawn wing?] ! [SMILEY FACE DRAWN] I hear from Chappie, [inserted] Storm Lake, IO, Quist _ Ironwood, Mich. Gausser - Grand Rapids, Mich - and the fore flusher - Talbot have not heard from.
I am willing to stand with any man so long as he stands with the right. My salary is 2500 next yr. at $3000 or $3300, So I am going to live any way until I die. I see you are homesick. Come to see me and stay a month at my expense and I will let you talk in my brick Church south de G. I am forever the same "Chappie"
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[Imprint, centered: ST. MARK'S IN-THE-BOUWERIE 234 EAST ELEVENTH STREET NEW YORK CITY ]
January 10, 1920.
Dearest darling Bugoobee,
This is a heremtory letter demanding you show cause why I shouldn't crack you over the head with a human shin-bone or a cartilagenous [cartilaginous] left ventricle or something – for not having seen Mrs Pollard and got reasons from her why the California Shipbuilder doesn't come through with $15 or $20.00
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due me for verse sold to them. She is secretary to Lindsay Campbell the editor. "That's all I want you to do for me." [underlined]
Temptation stands in my way now to pack up and git. San Diego High School asks me to come right away; Long Beach High School wants me February 1st; and to top the terrible climax Bessie Love writes me a letter! It all brings
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back the old flying days at North Island and Otay Mesa and March Field.
And here am I learning how to be poor and not learning how to sell M.S.S. When I see Amy Lowell, one of the biggest so-called poets today, paying for publicity, I wonder just where the rest of us get off. She will be here at St. Mark's to read one poem