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Bookstores are roadblocks in my life. It doesn't matter how many unread books cover the tables and shelves at the ranch, nor does abundance or lack of funds make a difference; if I see a book under-priced, out of print, or on my list to buy, in the sack it goes. So, not surprisingly, my part of this story begins in the poetry section of a musty second-hand bookstore in Fort Worth.
That was where I opened a collection of poems published by a vanity press years ago and found an envelope bearing a cancelled, red two-cent stamp, postmarked Brownwood Texas, June 23, 1930, 1 PM. It was addressed to a Miss Cora H. at 1301 Ave. C, Corpus Christi, Texas.
The poetry section of used bookstores is a very private place. Also, I knew my mother would have flushed my eyes with iodine if she even thought I would peek in another person's mail. Yet, in one swift maneuver, I slipped the letter in the breast pocket of my jacket. In another quick move, I replaced the atrocious poetry book on the shelf. The bookstore owner paid little attention to my purchases. I went directly to the hotel to read the letter.
The first page was dated June 23, 1930. The simple letterhead read: Rebecca H., Box 106, Brownwood, Texas. The letter opens: "Dear Cora, Your letter was waiting for me when I got here the afternoon I left. When I reached Sweetwater, (120 miles or so west of Brownwood) after a hot dirty drive, Paula was there to meet me in a Ford sport model coupe."
Now a number of characters enter the letter, like John, Hallie, Sam and Mabry, who must be some of Cora and Rebecca's family. But the strongest clue is that Rebecca is Paula's bossy big sister, or her bossy aunt. She writes, "That evening Paula took the sport coupe for a drive. I persuaded her that along with saving $30 difference in price, she would be getting more car for less money in a tudor sedan. She disgusted John by telling him she thought she looked cute in the sport coupe."
Rebecca prevailed. Paula turns in the sports coupe the next morning for what Rebecca describes in her letter as "a very pretty green dull color tudor Paula will be better pleased with than a sports coupe."
Next we find them taking a drive in the new tudor on a Saturday evening. "Paula drove. She was so afraid she would burn the bearings out that she went about 15 miles per hour, and I was sure it would be eleven before we got home. Later, however, I told her she would not injure the car on a good stretch by driving twenty or twenty-five, so she speeded up some." (I think she grew more confident, or needed space, as Paula leaves for Dallas in the new tudor.)
October 1, 1998
Sunday, Rebecca spends the day with Hallie and her husband John. She is still in Sweetwater. Her current topic is Sam and Mabry. Sam doesn't appear, she explains, as he has to wash the week's dishes and get the baby ready to go to church with his wife. Sam has been working for John, but now has a new job in Phoenix. Rebecca has plenty to say on the subject about how the old lady (Mabry's mother) had warned Sam in this quote, "Mabry couldn't and wouldn't cook a lick. That he took her for better or worse and shouldn't complain because everything has turned out for the bad was no reason for quitting." Worst of all in Rebecca's eyes, was how Mabry told Sam "to buy some honey almond cream to put on his hands so that people in the store in Arizona wouldn't know he'd done manual labor."
Something else Hallie and Rebecca covered on the Sunday visit was Paula and her roommate's love affairs. Rebecca reviews Hallie's report: "Paula is keeping up a hot correspondence with Mr. Eckert. She hears and writes every day, with specials (delivery?) in between. Her roommate, Myrtle, is going out with the town barber, who does not meet Paula's approval." So Rebecca writes on, "Hallie reminded her that her flame, Mr. Eckert, had been divorced by the Baptist minister's daughter because he was so conceited and belched all the time."
Here Rebecca adds in crowded longhand: "I don't want to forget to tell you, Momma and I ran into Mrs. Bean the other night at the drugstore, when we stopped in to drink grape juice and eat a cheese sandwich. Mrs. Bean said 'nights have been too hot for me to sleep.' Later, I told Momma I was sleeping under a blanket every night and bet Mrs. Bean was hot living over in that hole on West Street."
Somewhere along in the first reading, the guilty feeling disappeared. My sister found a letter of the writer Upton Sinclair in a library book when she was in college at Cornell. Mother never objected to the framed copy of Mr. Sinclair's letter hanging on the wall at the ranch. But I do feel obligated to buy the old poetry book the next time I'm in Fort Worth. However, I know from having read the first poem that I skimmed the top off the works when I stole Rebecca's letter to Cora.
That was where I opened a collection of poems published by a vanity press years ago and found an envelope bearing a cancelled, red two-cent stamp, postmarked Brownwood Texas, June 23, 1930, 1 PM. It was addressed to a Miss Cora H. at 1301 Ave. C, Corpus Christi, Texas.
The poetry section of used bookstores is a very private place. Also, I knew my mother would have flushed my eyes with iodine if she even thought I would peek in another person's mail. Yet, in one swift maneuver, I slipped the letter in the breast pocket of my jacket. In another quick move, I replaced the atrocious poetry book on the shelf. The bookstore owner paid little attention to my purchases. I went directly to the hotel to read the letter.
The first page was dated June 23, 1930. The simple letterhead read: Rebecca H., Box 106, Brownwood, Texas. The letter opens: "Dear Cora, Your letter was waiting for me when I got here the afternoon I left. When I reached Sweetwater, (120 miles or so west of Brownwood) after a hot dirty drive, Paula was there to meet me in a Ford sport model coupe."
Now a number of characters enter the letter, like John, Hallie, Sam and Mabry, who must be some of Cora and Rebecca's family. But the strongest clue is that Rebecca is Paula's bossy big sister, or her bossy aunt. She writes, "That evening Paula took the sport coupe for a drive. I persuaded her that along with saving $30 difference in price, she would be getting more car for less money in a tudor sedan. She disgusted John by telling him she thought she looked cute in the sport coupe."
Rebecca prevailed. Paula turns in the sports coupe the next morning for what Rebecca describes in her letter as "a very pretty green dull color tudor Paula will be better pleased with than a sports coupe."
Next we find them taking a drive in the new tudor on a Saturday evening. "Paula drove. She was so afraid she would burn the bearings out that she went about 15 miles per hour, and I was sure it would be eleven before we got home. Later, however, I told her she would not injure the car on a good stretch by driving twenty or twenty-five, so she speeded up some." (I think she grew more confident, or needed space, as Paula leaves for Dallas in the new tudor.)
October 1, 1998
Sunday, Rebecca spends the day with Hallie and her husband John. She is still in Sweetwater. Her current topic is Sam and Mabry. Sam doesn't appear, she explains, as he has to wash the week's dishes and get the baby ready to go to church with his wife. Sam has been working for John, but now has a new job in Phoenix. Rebecca has plenty to say on the subject about how the old lady (Mabry's mother) had warned Sam in this quote, "Mabry couldn't and wouldn't cook a lick. That he took her for better or worse and shouldn't complain because everything has turned out for the bad was no reason for quitting." Worst of all in Rebecca's eyes, was how Mabry told Sam "to buy some honey almond cream to put on his hands so that people in the store in Arizona wouldn't know he'd done manual labor."
Something else Hallie and Rebecca covered on the Sunday visit was Paula and her roommate's love affairs. Rebecca reviews Hallie's report: "Paula is keeping up a hot correspondence with Mr. Eckert. She hears and writes every day, with specials (delivery?) in between. Her roommate, Myrtle, is going out with the town barber, who does not meet Paula's approval." So Rebecca writes on, "Hallie reminded her that her flame, Mr. Eckert, had been divorced by the Baptist minister's daughter because he was so conceited and belched all the time."
Here Rebecca adds in crowded longhand: "I don't want to forget to tell you, Momma and I ran into Mrs. Bean the other night at the drugstore, when we stopped in to drink grape juice and eat a cheese sandwich. Mrs. Bean said 'nights have been too hot for me to sleep.' Later, I told Momma I was sleeping under a blanket every night and bet Mrs. Bean was hot living over in that hole on West Street."
Somewhere along in the first reading, the guilty feeling disappeared. My sister found a letter of the writer Upton Sinclair in a library book when she was in college at Cornell. Mother never objected to the framed copy of Mr. Sinclair's letter hanging on the wall at the ranch. But I do feel obligated to buy the old poetry book the next time I'm in Fort Worth. However, I know from having read the first poem that I skimmed the top off the works when I stole Rebecca's letter to Cora.
posted by George Noelke at 9:28 AM
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