Sunday Comix: Pocket Letters (on sunday, for a change)
2002-06-16 - 9:11 a.m.
I have a new coat, a new bit of named clothing. This is Jack, a wool coat from the seventies. Father and Aunt#1 were going through my grandparents stuff at the trailer they lived in, dividing stuff between their siblings when they came across this over coat. He smells of iron; old, dusty factory iron. And shoes standing patiently in the snow. So the jacket was passed to me, for whatever reason [or no reason at all], and today I noticed that there has been something in the pocket. This long past, and possibly forgotten. First, I pulled out a bookmark. Sarah had written her name five times on a piece of wallpaper and glued it to a thicker back. A piece of yarn tied to a hole punched in the top. On the back it reads:
F Ro m SAR AH
'God cares about you'(1 Peter 5:7)
To G RA M - p A
Next, something a little more emotional. Letters from Father to Grandmother#D while he was in Korea. Back when it cost 13 cents to send a letter to the other side of the world.
Dear Mom, Nov.14, 75
The parade sounds like a really big one, I'll miss the one next year too, but I'll be there to catch the one in "1977" just before I'm ready to get out.I'll be home from Korea on about the 10th of Nov. 76 if I haven't already told you.
Well how did the French dinner turn out the other week? You all sound like your having a nice time living apt. life and I wish I could be there to live it with all of you but that's OK because I'm having a real nice time too. We are going to have a big ThanksGiving dinner this year (in the mess hall of course) all 130 of us in the company. We should have a good time and I hope you all make it down to N.J. OK for the holiday.
We still haven't had any snow here yet and it might be a while before we get any too, because the days are still getting up in the 60s. How's the weather up in your neck of the woods?
I wrote Kevin and Judy a letter last Saturday and one to Len and Crystal today, when Kevin and Judy move into Judy's place make sure I get their new address and see if you could get that roll of film in my box developed (the box is in the closet of our [David-Evan-mine] room) then you can keep the pictures and put them in my photo album.
I'll try to get everyone something from Korea for Christmas this year but it might get there a little late and it wont be anything big because they have to travel 1/3 of the way around the world. How's things going with Dad and you now? Take care.
Your son Bob
Dear Mom, Dec.15, 75
I received your letter today that you mailed on the ninth of Dec. and David's too. I sent some Christmas cards out last week so they should get home on time. If I do send any presents home for anybody it wont be for a while, I'm sorry about promising everyone that I would but something came up.
It's been real cold here and we have a lot of ice, the temp.gets down to about -5� but we still haven't seen any snow yet.
I took some pictures but I guess these Koreans don't know how to develop film to good, see what I mean! I'll try to send a couple home with each letter.
Did you get your Christmas money alright.
I sent a postcard to a girl that I met in Seatle Washington today that I. (try that again) I sent a postcard to a girl I met in Seatle Washington on my way over here, (it took me this long to find a post card over here.
I've had a terrible cold now for the past week and I can't get rid of it.
We've been working real hard hard lately here to get ready for a big inspection, on saturday and sunday too. In fact it's almost time to get back to work now.
I So far so good, I'm still having a good time over here and I hope it stays that way.
Well make sure everyone has a good Christmas this year and that will make mine even better.
Your son
Bob
Because this Sunday Comix was all about the character I call Father, I just wanted to put a �thank you� in this entry. I have never officially thanked the man for working eight-plus hours a day, who-knows-how-many-days-a-year, since before he was really able to graduate from college [the first time...he recently went back to college and got a real degree]. I never really thanked him for being a generally silly guy. I was grown up not to humour his puns, although most of them are not without a mental chuckle. A small chuck, or would that be a chucklet? Nevermatter. I never gave a thought to what he got stuck with, doing all the chores no one else wanted and eating Step-sister�s leftovers. [In fact, he was the guy I asked to help clean up my puke last night.] I never forgave him, and would find it hard to even now, for thinking worse of him because of his difficulty with expression. All his poems end in rhymes, so to speak. But I will apologize, profusely if asked, for thinking that all thoughts need expression, or that all expressions contain a thought. [Becky taught me a lesson in this one while we were out on a weed-drive around the suburb-Boston area, late at night...not sure Meghan got it, and if Aaron did get it, I wish she had spent more time paying attention to the road [over-the-shoulder driver]]. I never felt as sorry for him as I should have...he should be one of those guys that �has it good�, and he does, sort of. I mean, in the sense that he never gets a break, crawls in bed with a demon at night (the bad kind of bed-demon) and is constantly berated and shut-out by his own children. I never appreciated...and can never really know how much it meant to him, to go into the army (I�m aware this is a poorly constructed sentence: deal). He says, now, that he loved to see the world, but he barely talks to people outside the house (much like myself, during the summer). I didn�t take it to heart, when I pointed out to Laura that he�s only wanted one thing his whole life...a little red sports car. He never got his wish, and it looks as if he never will. I never thanked him for the sacrifice he made, so that I wouldn�t have to live at Mum�s. That�s the clincher, and that�s the big answer. Father needed something to convince the court that he was financially stable, and that meant asking an old pastor-friend (now Step-mother) for a bit of support; child support, to be specific. To live with her, and marry her like an immigrant would to stay in the country; so that his children could grow up in a better environment. Basically, he married *her* so that I wouldn�t become one of those morons siphoning gas on my front lawn, with a driveway that leads into a dead-end street. But mostly, I�m thankful that he didn�t do himself in when times were rough.
Things discovered while landscaping*: Some people are born heroes. These are the people that naturally take every wrong path before they can find the right one, even if they know the way. And these are the people that hang in there, and make it to the last chapter, because they had hope that the last door would contain something better; and there aren�t any good stories about a guy that went straight from point A to point B. This is my new definition of a hero...not someone you look up to, but someone with a real story, someone who had the courage to kiss the girl to win the heart of the dragon.
Father is downstairs now, reaching to all-new lows. He�s on Matchmaker.com, hoping that the advent of Father�s Day might give him some leverage to get him out of the life he�s in. Unfortunately, no one�s told him that he can�t type fast enough to find love on the net...not even possible at 200wpm. Anyway, it was cute...and I say again, if Step-mother doesn�t die first, and I don�t get a couple years of just Father, My father, without any tainted influences, there�s gonna be flames in heaven.
*where I mention �landscaping�, I�m making fun of myself for making fun of my cousin for mowing his father�s friend�s lawns for pocket change. Because that�s a large chunk of what I do at the funeral homes I work at.
