I need a break from all the awful news in this country. So I’ll tell you about this.

A few years before my dad passed, he decided it was time to write down a few memories for his children and grandkids. I’m grateful. Scribbling’s not nearly as easy as it seems, which is why most people talk about doing something like this and never get around to it. He made it an on-going project, and by the time he died, it wasn’t quite as long as Lord of the Rings, but almost, maybe, and my mom decided it did need substantial trimming, along with some serious proofreading. Eventually, she gave me what she’d cleaned up, and asked if I’d try to page it and get it all bound up for friends and family. Occasionally there was something he thought important that I didn’t (I’m not big on eight-generation begats), but there was good stuff, too. In 1956, for instance, he was thrown out of a car in a head-on collision and, as I recall, had only some cuts and bruises and a bad headache. Like James Bond. This was one of many good tidbits. One of my favorites, though, didn’t even make it into the printed book. It’s a photocopy of a love letter written by my great grandfather. 

My Grandpa Toles died when I was about five. There are only two or three things I remember about him from personal experience. He was bald and had wire-rimmed glasses. He doodled. He was funny. I remember a squirrel he drew with his ball-point pen when I was sitting on his lap, and also a horse. He had a little trouble with proportion and it came out stretched longer than any horse I’d seen in life, and he explained it was a two-seater. Because I was five I took his word for it. The only other direct memory I have of him is his funeral.

He also kept a diary, in penmanship so gorgeous that when a friend of my son’s saw it, he said he should have a font named after him. There’s a three-month gap, after which he tells the story of accidentally shooting himself while cleaning a pistol. I saw this pistol, which my father used as the prime example that a gun was “always loaded.”

In the same hand there is a six-page letter to the girl who was going to be my great grandmother. Bessie. I remember her as a very pleasant old lady who always wore flowered hats and drove quite badly, as if the road were just a suggestion. But in the letter she is still a girl. As the letter goes on and my great grandpa gradually hones in on his subject, you watch his handwriting go a little slack, and you see more words and phrases that came to him late squished up between the lines. He’s thinking less and less about form and more about content. Maybe he’s actually just not thinking so much.

I wrote my  first (really bad) stories in longhand, but I haven’t done this since the early 90s, maybe before that. You can see what a neurotic reviser I was long before I started using a word processor (a term now already with its own patina). Anything I thought might be read by someone else someday, I revised and revised until there was only a sentence or two on the page without a line through it. Sam Toles’ whole letter has only one word crossed out: “Now please if there is please ask me and I will tell you the truth . . .” He caught himself getting a little importunate. 

There are maybe one or two misspelled words I can find. In six pages. It’s like the guy was from England.

There were a few things it took me awhile to understand. I couldn’t figure out what “Inkster” meant, in the heading. It looks like a start-up, but I knew this  of course was unlikely. It turns out it’s a town about twenty miles outside of Detroit.

He has this strange comment right at the start that it was a “Good job I had more than one match for it was certainly breezy just about the time the car came along.” I finally figured out he must have had some kind of hurricane lamp. Now that’s old school.

There are a number of places where an uncapitalized “but” follows a period, and this also has  thrown me. I have two theories. One is that the periods are quick commas he didn’t make big enough. The other, much more creative and interesting, theory is that he’d had his hand slapped too often in school for starting a sentence with a conjunction, and this was his little workaround. Who knows? It would be a lovely oddness.

At one point, he asks Bessie to destroy the letter after she reads it, “unless you really want to keep it.” There is no way on God’s green earth a girl is going to toss this letter, but the fact that nobody else has in 118 years is a testament to the redeeming sappiness of the generations. Despite the perfect penmanship and spelling, there’s no poetry in his prose, no sonnetizing or big city metaphor. He’s just a goofball in love.

Thank you, Dad, for sharing it.

—-

Detroit Aug24 – 08

Miss Bessie Swegles

Inkster

Dear Bessie:—

How are you feeling today. I felt ashamed of myself for keeping you up so late last night and I hope you will forgive me this time.

I arrived home: at least to Mrs Peters alright. Good job I had more than one match for it was certainly breezy just about the time the car came along. When I got in Mr. Wilham told me that he had been sick right after church. If I had known it I should have stayed with him and then I wouldn’t have had a chance to talk to you would I. You didn’t get a talking to for staying out so late did you? I certainly sympathize with you if you did yet I suppose they remember that they also were young once. But didn’t I get a teasing this morning when I got up. If I had got up late it would have been worse I dare say. but as I wanted to get back here early I had to get up early. What time did you get up Bessie if I am not getting too personal. anyway dear friend please take good care of yourself.

A week from today all going well I expect to be in a different state, so I wont be able to come and see you very often. Not as often as I have been during the last three weeks.

Say Bessie you remember that photo you gave me. I had it sitting on my dresser where I am rooming and when I came back the landlady asked me who that was the picture of. Of course I couldn’t say my sister as she knew her, and so I just kept mum. but really I almost was on the point of saying something else. Would you really Bessie have minded if I had said that it was my girl? Yet I would have been talking an untruth if I had said so wouldn’t I. Will you be angry if I call you that; or not now.

—3—

Truly did you think I meant what I asked you last evening. Yes Bessie I did and do mean it. I know our acquaintance has not been many weeks, at first I tried to keep from liking you. That was one reason I did not speak to you that tuesday evening. I did not know whether you thought anything of me or not. but I wanted you to know that I did care a little for you, before I went west. Yes Bessie I care more than a little for you, I truly do think a great deal for you and will you excuse me for saying it, but dear Bessie I love you.

Will you someday God willing be my Bessie

I am no flirt and to tell the truth I haven’t any use for them, and as I said last evening you are the only girl I ever asked to become my wife. Cannot you give me the slightest idea when you see that I am not fooling. If you do care enough for me dear Bessie, is there anything ^else that you would rather I would do than either of those two which I spoke of last evening.

The only reason why I would rather take up fruit farming first is because I would be in a better position to work on any improvement or invention which I might take up. In the city where a person is rooming out, it is certainly hard to work at it to advantage. one is handicapped not only by the lack of room but mainly by people whom you cannot trust, I do not mean to say that I don’t trust you. for little girl I do trust you fully. No Bessie I wouldn’t want to ask you to be mine unless we could love and trust each other fully I don’t think it would be right do you? and another thing is I want my wife to be ^{and live} happy if I ever have one, ^{in truth, I did think of remaining single until I had become slightly acquainted with you} no matter who it is. but dear Bessie I want that one to be you. Wont you? Yet do not answer against your will.

Bessie is there anything further that you would like to know about me

—5—

about my character etc. Now please if there is please ask me and I will tell you the truth or if you want to write to anyone who does know me well: just tell me so or Mr Wickham can give you the addresses of several who know me well.

This truly is I believe a love letter and will you forgive me for writing you such. Excuse haste ^{and mistakes} as I want to get this out tonight as it will go out to Inkster in the a.m.

Say Bessie when you get through this letter please destroy it, unless: you really want to keep it.

I may stop off at Wayne on my way out to Chicago on Sat. a.m. ^{about 11.00 or 1.30 p.m.} and take the train in the afternoon ^{about 4.30}. Mr Wickham wants me to go out friday evening but I will hardly be able to, I don’t think. You will be too busy to go out for a walk that afternoon for a couple of hours wont you? Do you ever go to Wayne on Sat. afternoons

—6—

Should you happen to be up that way, that you know of will you ^{Wish I had time to visit your parents a short time, how are they?} let me know Bessie? It seems that I want to be with you all the time, though I suppose I must not feel that way, and I hate to go out there where I wont see you again for months and perhaps years. I wish you could go too little girl.

I must stop or you wont be able to sleep after reading all this, or will it help to make you sleep better

Please write soon and let me know how you are getting along. I am getting along ^well and am feeling fine though it has been a pretty busy day for me since I arrived in Detroit

Bessie I wish you every success in your studies, health, and other things pertaining to you welfare. Also breathing exercises. ^Etc. don’t let me forget sat. p.m.

Dear girlie please take ^care of yourself.

Must close With love from

^{What would you} Sam. xx

^{rather I would write about generally. travel. nature music. science. comedy love or what.}