March 10, 1958

Dear Thom,

Things are now very confused.  I mean "like wow!"

To begin with we might get off early for Easter due to the spectacular success of our basketball team.  This is only a rumor as yet, which has neither been confirmed nor denied by the faculty.  If this rumor proves to be true, I will leave for home on Saturday, March 29.  Whether or not this occurs will undoubtedly depend on how far the team goes in the N.C.A.A.; therefore I probably will not know for sure exactly when I will be able to come home until a week before, or the weekend you leave for home, but even if we don't go all the way they might give it to us anyway.  Nobody knows or else nobody's talking.

What all this is leading up to is that it would not be wise for you to attempt any visitation at that particular time.  The week before vacation is always hell around here, because all the profs give gigantic exams on the theory that they can correct them over the holidays at their leisure.  After the week before vacation, you really need the vacation.  Also, because it is right before vacation, no one is going home and leaving his room vacant where you could stay.  Even if someone wanted to he couldn't leave this place early.  The rule states that everyone, dean's list or not, must attend the last class in every subject.  This means no vacant rooms and no unused meal cards.  This place is no state school and they clamp down on the rule.  Just before they turn us loose, we have a pep talk telling us to behave like Christian gentlemen, etc.  Then too everyone is running around like mad packing, getting their plane reservations, locating rides, etc.  However, there are still three weeks left before March 29 and if anything turns up I'll let you know immediately.  Right now I am just recovering from the first big batch of tests of the semester and I am now girding myself for the mid-semester exams which are coming up this week.  Then I will have another week's rest and the Easter exams will be upon me.

So S hasn't written yet.  I told you she might drift if you snowed her too much.

As for K, snowing her is not the heights to which my ambition rises.  If I get stuck with her this summer, I shall feel very ill used.

I doubt if we'll every get S or MM to the beach as neither one knows how to swim.  Maybe you could get S to go, but MM would no doubt rather die than betray herself in a swim suit.

I didn't mind when H told me he was going to take MM out because 1) I knew she would be dating others and 2) as long as she has to date some one, there is no one I'd rather have her date than H.  If she ever gets back with JD again, I might as well apply for overseas duty.

I have to write her about that Easter dance soon and I have a feeling that I won't receive a reply.  The only thing worse than a "Dear John" letter is no letter at all.  It's so easy for a girl not to answer a letter.  It pisses me off.  That's what it does. 

Don't let my first page discourage you too much.  I will keep my eyes and ears open for possible accommodations for you.  I just don't want you to get you hopes high and then have to break the bad news.  A lot can happen in three weeks.  S may write, who knows, anything can happen.  H might even elope with MM.

I've got to cut this jazz now and do my Physics.  Let me know if you've got any good news about anything in general.

I feel in a very defectory mood about everything in general, especially about Physics.  The only bright spot around here is that everyone is breaking their Lenten resolutions and buying sandwiches.

Will Easter never come!!?  "Life's but a moving shadow.  A poor player who struts his hour upon the stage and is seen no more."

What affects me the most about these lines is that MM can't even faintly remember them, and yet she studied the whole damn play.

Maybe Jimmy Gawne was right after all.  English departments in our schools are definitely lacking.

Will Easter never, never, come!?  Anon, anon, forsooth!

Bob


Spring Humoresque:

Spring has sprung.  The bird is on the wing.

But to MM, it doesn't mean a thing.

Cultural poetry  just leaves her dead,

And poor Macbeth was wastefully read.

Her aggregate knowledge of Lindsey and Chaucer

And all the rest, could reside in a saucer.

Her complete impotence in intellectual art,

Is a wedge that forces us miles apart.

Full long I have striven to drive that wedge out,

But there's nothing I know that she'll talk about.

Yet, despite her abominable taciturn feature,

I must admit she's a cute little creature.

And though it is foolish, I suppose I'll not swerve,

From my efforts to breach her fair walls of reserve,

But the thing that annoys me and pisses me off,

The thing that I hate as a giraffe hates a cough - - (terrible metaphor).

Should I in the future, her battlements breach,

And she stands there defenseless and well within reach,

With the battle now won, and the prey being caught,

I'll finally be certain she's as witless as I thought.

So in winning the battle, but losing the war,

I doubt very much if I'll come back for more.

And as penance supreme for my actions imprudent,

I'll join Tom Mac as a professional student.

Finis

You used to nauseate me with your C poems.  Now i can nauseate you with odes to MM.

Bob





































































e