Hiya Nance,
How in the hell is my best buddy making out this fine Sunday evening?
So, old
xxxx-bird finally jarred loose with a letter huh?? Man, it’s about time that you did, or I would have come over on that rock and beat yourxxxxxxxxfor you. Noxxxx, Nance, I was very glad to hear from you, but it seems that I write two letters to your one. What about thisxxxxhuh?Since I am in charge of quarters tonight thought that I had better catch up on my letter writing, so thought I would start with you.
I’m not really certain anymore that this type of comradery exists. The most intriguing thing about these types of letters is that they are raw, and real. Other times, they can be gritty and abrasive. Moreover, it was simply a solider in Oklahoma writing to another in California.
I do struggle sometime reading and interpreting these little scraps of family history. I’m also learning to accept the history just as it sits. This is the history that is sometime sad and depressive, but also joyful and appreciative. It was a way that they lived in 1949, and the way that they chose to embrace the life that they were living. I can’t blow the dust off, take what I want, and leave the rest. That was for them to do. What I can be appreciative of is the little window of time that was opened for me to take a peek into those lives in their most raw form.
There was a sadness in the rest of the letter that presented a perfectly painted picture of loneliness, and that loneliness took shape on a letter to another solider. I can walk away after reading the entire thing and understand that God had created such a joyful and sad letter that left this little moment suspended in time. At least for.
I can picture them on top of a hill as the sun sets down and casts colorful streaks across the sky. Both drinking a beer, pushing around talk about life, and what lays before them.
Most of these letters that I share are pages, and pages long. I just choose the little portions that speak to me in a way that I can write about them. It is usually something that inspires me or makes me what to take a different path in life.
"A soldier never dies. His blood makes the grass green for his children." ~ Carol Berg