Greetings from Historic Williamsburg, An Official Colonial Williamsburg Souvenir - a fold-out 12 postcards in one, sent from the fiancee'. I should give him a name - not his real one - but I really like his real one. Oh, hell. Let's call him "Larry." He is stationed at Ft. Lee, VA. I wonder if he went here with his parents when they went to visit him. No notes. All the black folks in the pictures are "servants" - all the tourists are white. No other reflections come back to me here. Only picture of some place I've never been.

A St. Patrick's Day card, from the fiancee'. "Do you really think we should be leprechauns this year? We were Valentines...and you remember what a mess that was!" Very funny. He writes on the back: "Actually I have no real allegiance to the Irish but wearing green every day of the year makes one feel somewhat obligated..." I miss his dry humor.

September 2, 1962. Another letter from my long ago lover, Dave - he of the Luther League Convention - the one who went in the airforce. Funny. Looking at these envelopes can still give me a feeling of one kind or another. Very hard to describe. Seeing Dave's handwriting on the envelope - I almost feel excited again to hear from him. Can almost picture him in the sunshine on the Cornell Campus, sometime in the late 50's? I think. 1959, most likely. I would have been 16. A sweeter 16 boyfriend a girl couldn't ask for. Alas, he lived in Washington, D.C.

I get a similar feeling when I see the envelopes from my fiancee'. But with a heavy tinge of regret. I didn't do wrong by Dave, and we remained friends for as long as we were able to stay in touch. I did wrong by the other one, and we did not remain friends.

Dave writes, "I still think you're a pretty swell girl." Makes me feel like a flapper! Or a USO girl from the 40's. Makes me smile.

An empty envelope - wonder if the letter is further down the stack. Return address: Mrs. Robert Goodall. This is from one of my best friends, who married right out of high school. When I saw her at the 40th reunion, she was married to someone else. I remember her as loving to have fun. She was one of the "bad" influences in my life - someone I greatly appreciated at the time. I think she was the one who first told me she had had sex, so when I finally did, she was the one I told. It was a big deal back then, when we were only seventeen.

When I showed her pictures of my life, they included picture of my current almost-ex-boyfriend, who was black, and she appeared a bit taken aback. "Is he black?" was the only question she asked, looking at the picture of this tall, very black dude with long dread locks. "Yes," was all I said, not wanting to make an issue of it. Neither did she.