Letters, We've Got Letters

Letter writing is said to be a lost art. As is reading and writing cursive penmanship. 

While I was recovering from a softball game played in blazing hot and humid conditions Sunday morning, Gilda spent the early afternoon reading through a box of mostly handwritten letters from her high school and college years (late 1960s) as well as the first few years of our dating and marriage (early 1970s).

She’s always teased me I secured her hand by default—her other boyfriend, Steve, played amateur hockey and seemed to perpetually have an injury to report. Letter after letter from him detailed a dislocated right shoulder, an unspecified mishap from a “collision in a friendly neighborhood vicious hockey game. It’s imazing (sic) how a cloth sling magically changes to a wooden crutch,”  and “the usual car troubles.” When he wasn’t injured he was inflicting pain, proudly noting “the ribs of a Sutton Place doctor I broke in a hockey fight. I figure I cost him (in 1971 dollars) about $6,000 from his practice.”

I’m a lucky man, and no doubt a wise one as well to not having revealed my penchant for real and imagined ailments until after our “I do’s” were exchanged.

I’m not jealous of Gilda’s romances before me, but I did mention to her that one of the three letters she kept from Steve came but a few weeks before we got engaged; a second arrived just days later. Perhaps she had told him his cause was doomed, as he began the letter saying, “This is the price you pay for incurring my wrath. An eligible (sic) handwritten letter. Be thankful I’ve printed it.” 

It should also be noted that Steve sent his letters to Gilda’s mother’s address, a home Gilda had moved out of months earlier. 

Speaking of addresses, I think I’ve figured out why I have yet to win a big lottery prize. Often I play numbers based on addresses where I have lived, including 5 East Genesee St., Syracuse, during my year up north obtaining a master’s degree in newspaper journalism. 

Turns out I never lived at that address. The real number of my Salt City domicile was 1518. Ach, all those wasted dollars!!!

Gilda kept many of my letters from that year. Some observations:

*My handwriting was a lot neater back then. I’m lucky today to be able to decipher my scrawls a day after I jot them down, but I was able to read without difficulty what I penned 44 years ago.

*I repeatedly noted how many papers I had to write for my courses. Honestly, I remember just two, one on the effect of herd mentality in the press, illustrated by a visit to the White House and interviews with members of the press corps on the seemingly pack-journalism sameness of their reporting, and a second on Birthright, a Syracuse-based home for women with unplanned pregnancies who chose to deliver but not necessarily keep their babies. 

*Gilda and I always thought we became engaged over the 1971 Thanksgiving weekend. Reading my letters revealed our engagement occurred over the Christmas holiday. 

*People, especially our kids, make fun of my taste in music, but here’s a redeeming item from one of my 1971 letters: “I’m listening to a great record now—Carole King’s Tapestry. Buy it—you’ll never regret it. It’s GREAT!!!” (FYI, if you didn’t know, Tapestry was released in 1971.)

*I was not a sentimental or romantic letter writer. Hopefully, I’ve matured in those areas. Of course, it’s up to Gilda to deliver the verdict.

Finally, for those not familiar with the provenance of the headline to this blog post, click on this link to Perry Como, a 20th century baritone for more than 50 years whose television show my mother rarely missed:  https://youtu.be/IC7o7FbUipg

Commuter Edition

I’ve been getting lots of compliments lately, mostly from women, about what a great and considerate husband I am. It’s all because Gilda broke her wrist last summer.

Her injury has long been healed but the practice of my driving her to and from work Monday through Wednesday during her healing and rehabilitation has continued well beyond her return to physical fitness. Our female, married, friends can’t believe I put myself out in my retirement by waking up at 6 am to drive her into Manhattan and return in the afternoon after her work day concludes. They wonder if their husbands would be so accommodating.

Truth be told, while I don’t relish the loss of sleep and the disruption of my afternoon, I have an ulterior motive for being her chauffeur—I like to eat well. Gilda is a fabulous cook who often was too tired to whip up a dinner for two after she drove herself home. But as a passenger, she pays me back by cooking up nightly feasts (as I write this blog at 5:30 pm she is in the kitchen preparing tonight’s repast). 

Two months ago I wrote about our listening to the BBC World or the Pulse music station, both on Sirius Radio. Often on my way home after dropping Gilda off in the morning or when driving to pick her up in the evening I listen to Pandora, mostly folk and folk rock, music I sing along with that brings back memories of the decades when I was a teenager through my thirties. 

I was never into heavy metal, punk rock or anything that I considered “noise.” When I went off to Syracuse University for my master’s degree, my sister gave me the following LP albums:

Stonehenge by Richie Havens;

Tapestry by Carole King;

Days of Future Passed by The Moody Blues;

Tea for the Tillerman by Cat Stevens;

Ladies of the Canyon by Joni Mitchell;

Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits by Bob Dylan.

That last album contained a Milton Glaser psychedelic poster portrait of Dylan. Gilda had the album, as well. We hung one of the posters in Dan’s room when he was young, its whereabouts now unknown to us. Also unknown to us, Ellie loved that portrait. Last year Donny wanted to give her a framed copy of the poster. He was ready to spend several hundred dollars when I told him we had another copy in the attic. The framed poster has become a cherished addition to their bedroom. (And no, I didn’t charge him for the poster.)

Back to the commute: Each way the trip generally takes 45 to 60 minutes. We avoid most of the morning traffic by leaving White Plains around 6:45. The first bottleneck usually presents itself at the Bronx border, around Van Cortlandt Park, near an area under construction. It’s always amusing, and somewhat dispiriting, to read an electronic sign alongside the roadway telling motorists “Your speed is 4 mph.”  

Crossing the Fordham Road Bridge can be a pain, but the most exasperating part of the journey centers on the double-parked trucks along Fifth Avenue above 125th Street that shunt two lanes of traffic into one.

Below Marcus Garvey Park, it’s an open road until we get to Mount Sinai Hospital. I’m amazed the hospital doesn’t flex its muscle and demand better traffic control at its doorstep. From 102nd Street to 98th, even ambulances with blaring sirens have a hard time penetrating trucks and taxis that are double-parked. It’s the same obstacle course later in the day when I return. 

Here are a couple of things I wonder about:

Having spent the last two days driving in fog and rain, barely seeing the white lane markers, I wonder if there is an inexpensive way to paint fluorescent lane markers on our streets and highways;

I wonder if there is some secret international diplomacy afoot behind the drop in gasoline prices. I wonder if the United States has not struck a deal with Saudi Arabia to let the barrel price of oil float to its market level. Many analysts opined the Saudis did not back an OPEC cutoff of supply as a means of hurting Iran and Venezuela that don’t have the financial resources to withstand lower oil prices the way the Saudis do. 

My guess is the real target is Russia, part of the Obama administration’s overall plan to fiscally squeeze Moscow because of its actions in Ukraine and Crimea.