Pages
1
11-6-56 Tues
Dear Mother,
At the moment, I'm "working", or at least I'm getting paid. We've run out of mail to open & sort, & so with the permission of the foreman, here I am. I started one to you a couple of days ago, but it's at home & I didn't like it anyway.
The clipping about Dr. Maeth was really a shocker. I had a great deal of respect for him, and a thing like that is rather hard to accept. I do know something of his personal philosophy & in the light of it, the sanctions that led to the position he was in are not too difficult to understand. I can't help remembering, though, that big glittering Oath of Hippocrates that hung in his office. I hope you called & offered to do anything you could. I'll bet all of Mrs. Maeth's high sassiety are far, far away by now. I hope it won't have any affect on Dean's engagement.
The Thanksgiving dinner reservation is at Dinah's Shack, 5:00 P.M. no sawdust on the floor, a beautiful bar, & an excellent wine list.
Your frequent references to Nicholas, Boy Brother, Body Beautiful, etc. are fine,
3
2 but they do sound a little like "I don't mean to say anything dear ... but" (for fear of starting a revolt.) Jim is not exactly a physical wreck. He looks fine to me, & is loaded with character, the strength of - type. I think he feels your dissaproval. You will find that he is very difficult to get to know, after a certain point. One of his best friends told me that a long time ago. By your letters I realize that your ideals were a little different from mine. I wasn't exactly husband-hunting & I knew him a year before I ever went out with him, which began almost a year ago. I don't think you know me very well in that respect. Anyway, don't make any rapid judgements. I'll get him into a white shirt & a tie the next time you come up. He looks rather nice.
Kevin came up Saturday night. I guess he wanted to have a party, so I told him not tonite. Jim had just brought me home from dinner at his house & we were both pretty beat.
This is the dead season for Kodak, the two months before Christmas. After that pow! The post Christmas rush. I'm on night shift, 3 to 11, & the day shift cleans up most of the work. By 9:00
5
3.
we're usually sitting around folding envelopes, just to look busy if anyone important comes through.
The landlady has decided that we're such good bets that we don't need a lease. Chick had the attorneys at Allstate look over the lease she wanted us to sign, & I guess she really must have thought we were dumb pigeons. I wrote her a nice letter, telling her that I'd had an attorney examine the leases & that we couldn't sign it as she had written it. Her reply was a very sweet letter saying that she realized we were the kind of people who don't need a lease. So then Paula's next rent check bounced. She got hold of someone else's Bank of America checkbook, on the wrong branch. So I wrote her another nice letter with Paula's postal money orders enclosed. We await her answer.
I wish you could find something to do that really interested you. I can't come home. You know that. It just doesn't work out & I really would hate the complete change of living habits that it would entail. If I did come home & try to get along, it would just be one migraine after another, as it was during the longer vacations. The tension you live under is unhealthy. When it