April 20, 1957

(Letter addressed to "Mouthwash College")

Dear Thom,

I am finally getting to write you letter.  I intended to write it last Wednesday night, but I just
never got around to it.  I got in late Tuesday night hoping for a peaceful two week rest.  So
what happens?  Wednesday morning at 9:30 sharp a bucket of water and a sponge are
placed lovingly at my bedside and I've been washing walls ever since at the fantastic rate
of one room per day.

There has been a good deal of action around here since I wrote you last.  In my last letter
I believe I told you about Germany's surrender, or was it the bombing of Pearl Harbor?
I don't think we are going to finish our chess game in my lifetime but I have made provisions
in my will so that the game will continue through my descendants.  I don't think the
responsibility for the delay in moves rests entirely on my shoulders.  However, I doubt whether
you could be as dilatory as JM, if you tried.  I wrote to him last Feb. and I'm still waiting for
an answer.  I'm going to look him up in the next week and see what's wrong.

Mt. Carmel News - - Unrest in the Nest!  The Eagle's little empire was struck a staggering
blow last month when the underclassmen for some reason refused to buy lunch room food.
From what I hear it was an organized revolution.  They even stationed guards to make sure
that no Royalist or Tory bought anything.  Naturally this rising of the proletariat did not ride
well with an absolute monarchy such as at Mt. Carmel H.S.  At any rate the riot was broken
up after a couple of days by the combined brown robe forces, who stood guard over the
young revolutionaries while they ate and would not allow them to say word one.  Thus
liberty was crushed and the oppressor triumphed.

The boys "naaaked" JD once too often while he was walking in the corridors.    He
wheeled around, bellowed a few well-chosen phrases, and flung his copy of :Why
Johnny Can't Read" at them (in reality he threw his Gen. Lit. book at them).  I don't know
what came of that little incident, I only know it happened.

Fr. Thomas broke his ankle a few weeks ago.  He probably tripped over a pile of chance
book money.

I picked my room for next year a few weeks ago.  It is a single on the 4th floor of
Howard, 405 to be exact.  At last I shall have some privacy.  It's not a big room and what
it lacks in size it makes up for in its antiquitous nature.  But it's mine and mine alone!
(sentence fragment skillfully employed to give joyful effect).

I must admit that I did not notice your misspelling, unintentional I suppose, of the fair name
of my glorious University.  However, since I am not accustomed to scrutinizing the
envelopes, I do not feel that I should be held completely accountable for my oversite (sic),
Henceforth, I suggest that you place all material which you wish me to read on the inside
of the envelope.

Have you heard about the World's Fair that will be held in Belgium in 1958?  I have been
thinking about it for a long time and have decided that it would not be a bad idea if we
could get a summer job there.  About 40 nations are going to have exhibits and the
U.S. is putting up a $20,000,000. building.  Since you are about 1000 miles closer to
Belgium than I am, I figure that you can get some information easier than I can.  I think it
might be an interesting trip.  Find out what you can, eh.

I am enclosing the program of Aquinas' brilliantly executed play, or so I am told;  I
didn't see it myself.  I took the trouble to underline the names of several of the cast who
you will recognize.

How is your "fuzz" life coming?  I've almost forgot how to spell the word.  It's getting pretty
bad,  but then man can not live on fuzz alone.  Yet on the other hand...............  Ah well,
"Piece in our time",   if I may quote the immortal words of Prime Minister Chamberlain
on his return from Berlin in 1938 or was it '39.

I will be home for the summer by May 31 at the latest.

I met Fr. Myles last Monday.  He was driving past N.D. on his way to Niagara and he
stopped in to see the boys.  He said Steady Eddie lost twenty lbs.  I'll believe that when
I see it.

Has the glacier retreated yet?  Are the roads open?  Did M go back to Chicago yet?

Bob

April 12, 1957

Dear Thom,

In the interest of rapid chess games I am dispatching this post card to you. 
Enclosed please find one chess move.  I will be home from Apr.17th to the 28th.
Look to receive an extensive letter on Good Friday or Easter Monday.

QB to QB3

April 6, 1957

Dear Bob,

I'm very disappointed in you.  I have either become too subtle for you or else you just don't read
the addressee side of my envelopes.  In either case a serious deficiency is evident in your
education and I trust immediate steps will be taken to alleviate the situation.

I took a three day hike with a friend of mine last Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday and had a great time.  It;s nice to play Dan'l Boone once in a while.  It certainly makes one appreciate the
comforts of civilization.  We traveled about 40 miles on foot, and when it started to hail, we
hitchhiked another ten miles.  We climbed a mountain (3240 ft. above sea level and about
2100 ft. above the surrounding area) and the view was breathtaking.  We could see about
30 miles in every direction.  It seemed as if we had conquered the world when we surveyed
the surrounding mountains and lakes. 

And not a girl in sight!

Tom

Queen to QR3

March 8, 1957

Dear Thom,

I am at this time engulfed in extensive mid-term examinations.  I am also working on a term
paper, this is keeping me quite busy.

Has the snow melted up there yet?  It is finally getting warm down here.  It rained all day and
the temperature was 50.

JM received a 3.57 average while BB just missed straight As.  Oh, how the mighty
have fallen!

I met a friend of mine here who I haven't seen for 8 years.  I went to his house for dinner last
Sunday (he is living in South Bend) and low (sic) and behold he has a sharp sister in high
school (age 16 or 17).  Howsoever, she is being monopolized by two freshmen at N.D. who
live in South Bend and own cars.  Strike three, I'm out!  Oh well, all comes to he who waits.

Nothing is happening down here except lots of work.  It is very discouraging.    I guess I'll
survive.

Bob

QK to K4

Takes pawn.

I hope your chess board coincides with mine.

March 2, 1957

Dear Bob,

I got my marks this week, and I came out with a 3.2 average using the five-point system, four C+'s and
a B in German.  This means that I have the highest average of any freshman on the fourth floor of Lord
Hall (there are two of us).

Now that M is part of the sometimes painful but always instructive past, I have shifted my sights to
greener more mature pastures.  I'm corresponding regularly with a girl who spent first semester at
Springfield College (Mass.) but is now attending Cortland in up-state New York, near home.  I hope
to have her here (not to be interpreted in the Aldous Huxley sense) for Green Key weekend sometime
in May.  We'll see what develops.  She writes wonderful letters that make me wish.................

We have our spring vacation from March 28th to April 7, and I may come home.  I would appreciate
it very much if you did not call my house as you did when I went to Detroit, for I am planning to
surprise everyone.

Sorry to hear that J has followed the lead of some of her more ravishing contemporaries, but it is
probably all for the better.

OB to KG5

Tom

P.S. Your mom went me some wonderful cookies!  Somebody loves me!

Feb. 21, 1957

Dear Thom (John)

Your expose of the Winter Carnival and subsequent expose of the wily M was a highly enjoyable piece of


prose.  It was a true masterpiece of double-entendre.  Although you well-put trials and tribulations were


very humorous, it is unfortunate that your Operation M fell through.  I fully agree with you in your two-point

theory on selecting the proper marital party.  I am especially predisposed to agree with you because it looks

like my Operation J has floundered.  She has blatantly refused to answer my last letter.  Apparently her 


interests lie (lay) elsewhere.  I must say that she has picked an inopportune time to desert the ship, as it were
.  
I will now be forced to search for  date to the N.D. Easter Dance in Chicago- - a project which does not 


appeal to me.  If there is one thing I don't like to look for, it's a date for a dance.  It seems like you should be


 able to order one is this modern day & age.  I certainly don't want to miss that dance.  It will be a !!real!!


blast.  I can use one too.  Everyone who lives within 200 miles of this place is going home over the


Washington weekend except me.  What do I have to go home to?  My fish tank?


I don't suppose I'll be getting any cookies from M's flunkies not that since which things are so?


Ah well, QB to Q2.


This letter certainly needs some paragraph zoning, doesn't it?


Bob