Fiancee' time. He gets to go to a club with some of the NCO's and drink for awhile, with someone else's ID. They watch "Treasure of the Sierra Madre." He tells me that, even if we were married, I could not accompany him overseas if he were transferred. The army wouldn not pay for it. Apparently, I had been concerned about that, and had wanted to get married sooner rather than later. So, this is MY idea. Huh. I did love him, though. I'm absolutely certain I was in the "wheresoever thou goest" mode.

He sends along a post newsletter, the Lee Weekly, from Fort Lee, Virginia. Not only does it have a column announcing Lenten Meditations; it also has a short educational column of "counterinsurgency terms." Included are definitions of "covert operations," "evasion and escape," and "guerrilla." "Covert Operations: Operations which are so planned and executed as to conceal the identity of or permit plausible denial by the sponsor. They differ from clandestine operations in that emphasis is placed on concealment of identity of sponsor rather than on concealment of the operation." Huh. Now they tell me. Well, actually they told me then, but I didn't know enough to pay attention. "Evasion and escape: The procedures and operations whereby military personnel and other selected individuals are enabled to emerge from an enemy held or hostile area to areas under friendly control." "Guerrilla: A combat participant in guerrilla warfare."

You don't say.

Letter from loved one in army. Arranging a meet in Louisville. Very detailed. I will register at the hotel under an assumed name. Laura Wyndham. Where in the hell did I get that? Very romantic name. I had never even heard of a Harlequin novel, but it sure as hell sounds like one. Things are so much simpler these days. (My daughter's boyfriend has been living in her room for three months.) Is this good or bad? Better, I think. But not quite as romantic. He puts three puzzles on the back of the letter - all titles of a piece of prose by Shakespeare (which he mispells, but that's all right because at least it puts me one up on him. I never could figure them out, even now - even the one he says even a child can do - hmmmm....must have a child in the title?)

A high school graduation picture of my first college roommate. Anne was a hard drinking, hard talking, hard-headed Lutheran woman from Olney, Illinois. I had my first "road trip" adventure with her, driving from upstate Carthage to downstate Carbondale, and Southern Illinois University to hole up in a boys dorm room, drinking and smoking, and doing our best to "run around" (snuck in there - had to, in those days), and back to Carthage before curfew on Sunday night. I think we said we were going to visit her folks in Olney. She was slightly chunky, had dark hair and wore glasses, not at all considered cool in those blonde sweater girl days, but she was cool nevertheless, and probably saw more action than I did, me having the blonde part down, but missing out on the sweater girl bits. The last time I saw Anne, she was married and working as a social worker near Rhinelander, WI. She and her husband had built their house, and put a tin roof on, because they loved the sound of the rain on a tin roof. It was raining. The sound kept me up all night.

Oh, the halcyon days of 1962. Another letter from my St. Olaf friend. She's dating a Zen Buddhist banjo-player, 6'1", blonde. They've had a "hootenany" on the gym steps. She met a freshman from Chicago who had seen Miriam Makeba and Joan Baez twice! The college has decided to have Chad Mitchell instead of Miriam Makeba for homecoming, since Makeba was a little too exotic for St. O. She is taking world lit and philosophy, "a field that I knew nothing about. Barren. And it's like rain on a parched crop. I eats it up, I does, I does." She decides to take up smoking, deliberately, and she and her friends have a plan to be on hand when the snow melts and slides off the roof of the St. Olaf chapel. They want to be stationed on the balcony, wearing winged helmets, and shout Odin just before the whole things slides off. Lastly, she orders me to transfer to St. O the following year. An order I disregard. I dropped out of school and moved to Chicago instead.