Today's letter is from Houston-based Rosena or "Ro" to Margie and Carl up in Minneapolis, from March of 1968.
Perhaps American Vendors is the successor name to the U-Select-It confectionary company which was also Houston-based and from the earlier letterhead apparently had a connection to this family?
"The Happening" here is not the kind of hippie happening that was breaking out around the country in that summer of '68, but a frightening incident when visiting Chloe's new house that "shattered" the "white glove" gentility of the family's social scene that Spring.
As this is typewritten I did not transcribe it for you, but please let me know if you have any trouble reading it and I will do so.
I love the image of Rosena casually killing the snake she found under "Baby's" water dish. I assume Baby was their dog, but it sounds soooo Texas!
Enjoy!
william
I love how Rosena describes everything that happened. Now with all the technology we don’t communicate like this anymore. We make phone calls; send brief emails and text messages…. We are killing the little writer we have sleeping in our brain.
Evelyn
Posted by: Alex Mora | January 28, 2011 at 03:46 AM
Thank you for this box of letters, Bill. Reading them is really the perfect way to keep in touch with America from the other side of the world; they are something like the epistolary equivalent of comfort food. Almost more than the actual words, I love the texture of the paper, the shape of the handwriting, the type-written letters, the post-marks and the stamps. I never thought I would feel nostalgia for old paper correspondence, but looking at these letters I find that I do.
Posted by: James Longley | January 29, 2011 at 07:06 AM