Monday, August 10, 2015

1953: I've got mail.

From a letter my dad wrote to me when I was 10. It was the summer after my mom died, and I was staying with our cousin Peggy in Monterey, Massachusetts, while he was home in Queens. I think this first part of the letter is so funny. His mother (my grandmother "Lucky") had been an opera singer, and one of her favorite songs was the Joyce Kilmer poem set to music.

Dear Susie, Mother and I got home Saturday at 12:30 p.m. We had a lovely trip, all except Mother and her "Trees." "Only God can make a tree."  And then to make matters worse, she began to sing about the trees. I was praying for the time we'd reach the parkway where trees were not so numerous.