photo: Becka McFadden & Paul Wade
Today's letter read a bit like an inventory, of which more presently.
First, though, I'm struck by how the letter began - with this very embodied description of the heat.
"The perspiration is just running down my back in streams...what an uncomfortable feeling. |'m resting my forearms as I write on several thicknesses of paper to keep the perspiration off the letter."
As I read that, I find myself wanting to read back through all the letters looking for references to how the body feels, how it's situated.
I can't think of any other incidences where he talks so much about how he's sitting or how he feels, physically. What he's sitting on, yes. That he's dirty, yes. But this is the only time I can recall where I can picture it, I could do it too.
Interesting how we only really remember the body when it makes us uncomfortable.
It reminds me of the ways I used to sit crazily when doing academic writing - I would literally tie myself in knots. Like I wasn't sure I wanted to be doing it all on some embodied, visceral level I couldn't articulate. So I kept on and knotted myself up about it.
I have been thinking recently about the physical implications of quarantine - how have bodies changed? How has my body changed?
I've taken two hikes in the past month and each of them broke me in a way I have never been broken by a walk. I've been exercising everyday in quarantine - yoga, pilates, barre, my own various physical interventions. But obviously I've not been walking as much or in the way that I'm used to. A pre-COVID fitness routine with regular walking subtracted is not, it seems, sufficient. Either that, or I've developed a serious hip ailment over the past eight weeks. But I digress...
Back to Jack and his inventory!
The watch and camera hustle we're well aware of, but today we learned that the business also includes fountain pens and radios.
This is my (Jack's former) watch and fountain pen. I love the consistency of these things. The timelessness of a gentleman's accoutrements. And their universal usefulness - even under the duress of global conflict!
I'm struck by the element of forward planning in all of Jack's buying and selling. It's all "so we can get a really nice X" or "do a really nice Y" with the profits.
It's hard to get a sense from Jack's letters if he ever felt in any danger at all. I need to read more about what the US Navy was doing in the Philippines in 1945.
I suppose it would be impossible to not feel in some personal danger during a war. Even if you know you're unlikely to see combat in your current posting, it could always be asked of you.
I wonder how much the economic activity - with its forward focus, the promise of delayed gratification - helped him. I mean in the sense that it was psychologically useful.
I also love knowing that these letters were written with a foundation pen. A Parker 5 to be specific. At least until he sold it. For $20.
...
Sorry, back now. I just went down a rabbit hole googling vintage Parker pens. I think he must have meant a 51.
Something like this.
I can understand why you'd be upset if you left those in your laundry.
Today I've left the hits of the 1940s playlist on as I write and, rather perfectly and serendipitously, the Trolley Song from Meet Me in St. Louis is now playing.
I'll leave you with that for today. Until next time,
Your Devoted Hubby.
