I had all kinds of chores and errands lined up for yesterday, but happily dropped them after a call from my friend. The boys were there and they were going blueberry picking, then to the lake. Did I want to go? Well, whaddya think?
Met them at Emery's farm about 11:00, picked up our pails, boarded a wagon pulled by a tractor, and went to the fields. (Jason was with us, too. He had been visiting his grandparents, but his great-grandmother had had a suspected heart attack. Turned out not, luckily, but she was admitted.) Got lots of good berries, paid, left, and drove the short distance to my friend's for a grilled cheese lunch. After that, it was the heavenly waters at Harry Wright Lake, as we joined Lisa, Lindsay, and Lucas. Stayed until a bit after four, then parted--a fine summer day.
Had a bite, then drove to Staples and Target for this 'n' that.
Earlier, I had finally finished categorizing Pat's letters, a large pile of which was comprised of Judy L.'s letters to Pat in 1951 and '52. Now, unlike Carole Liberty's (see earlier post), this was a romance. Pat had told me something of Judy, but I didn't remember a lot of it; called Flo League, nee Woods, who had been a buddy of Pat's in high school. She said Judy was a British girl who had graduated a year ahead of them, in 1950. Flo said she was a "very sweet girl," and Pat was "crazy about her," but they parted because, according to Pat, she "wanted to marry a doctor." (She was in the R.N. program at Hahnemann Hospital in Philly.)
Last night, I sat and read all twenty-four of her letters. How very peculiar it was to eavesdrop on two young people barely out of their teens, who might have continued life together if things had worked out more than sixty years ago. And if so? It would have changed my life radically, and that of my children, and grand-children, and great-grandchildren. The mystery of time passing is one I've always found fascinating.
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