September 22, 1962. We are still in love. I know this because I have written the words to a song - "I Love Paris in the Springtime" - on the envelope - except that I have substituted his name for Paris. Little did I know at that time that some 23 years later I would date a man named Paris and spend eight months in the house of the 300 pound crazy man (not named Paris)...but I digress. I have just returned to college after summer vacation. I am newly engaged. He is in the Army. One year from now I will have jilted him, practically at the altar, but that future, like the one containing the man named Paris, is still hidden from me.

The letter, however, is a little peculiar, and must have started me wondering about him, since so much of what he talks about are niggling little negative things. He is remembering his college days (a mere three monoths behind him) and he mentions the overpriced books, leering at the freshman girls (had he leered at me the year before?), the "early dirty rushing of the supposed leaders of the freshman class," (this last referring to the fraternities, in one of which he was a member - the coolest one, as a matter of fact - or so we all thought) - and this: "those joyous hellos fromo the many hypocritical students who cared less when you left..."

It holds a note of bitterness that I must have already noticed - or perhaps was only beginning to notice. I'm sure the events of the subsequent year did absolutely nothing to wean him away from a bitter outlook on life. He taught me so many things, but I do not remember learning bitterness.