I’ve mentioned this in a few other spots on the web, but this week, I sorted through a beautiful pile of World War II mail, letters written by a man to his wife every 2-3 days from overseas during 1943-1944. He writes from the time he leaves, to…well, I haven’t read that far yet. There are over 100 letters, so I’m looking forward to reading for a long time to come.
I have read through the first 2 months, and this man knew how to put words together so that you sensed the love he had for his wife, and he wrote in a way that made it possible to live his experiences through your imagination as he wrote them. You could sense that he wanted his wife to be experiencing what he was experiencing, and did the best he could with censorship being what it was at that time…every letter was read by and marked “censored”, and sometimes by whom.
As I read, I wondered if writing letters like this is still done…do our guys overseas long for letters as much as this man longed to receive mail, do they write home with the same passion? What about the ones that don’t have someone special in their lives, are they receiving mail? Or is it all done by email now?
There is something so personal about a hand written letter…if you love the person that wrote it, you know you are touching the same paper that their hand has touched, it is the closest thing to having something that they held recently in your hands when you can’t have that person to embrace.
I’m getting off track…like a good novel, and a very romantic one at that, I’m enjoying real stories, written by a real person, who really loved his wife back home, longed to be with her, longed to hear from her, missed her terribly, and would be apart from her longer than he expected.
Our thoughts and prayers go out to someone who has made MANY a movie, but for most, the greatest accomplishment is, at least should be, the making of a family. I can’t even imagine how painful it must be to lose a child, one who you have had to take care of in special ways because of his special needs, and then have to do so in the spotlight of the press, the media. I will leave the death of John Travolta’s son to the media, and just share a fond memory.
We all know that John Travolta made tons of movies, but the one that hits home personally is one of his early movies, “Saturday Night Fever”, oh, and wasn’t he in “Welcome Back, Kotter”? The TV Show? Yes indeed, sorry for the senior moment, I just googled it, and he was.
Anyway, back to Saturday Night Fever…that was back in the “disco” days….are you “old” enough to remember “discotechs”? When I started dating my Colorado Mountain husband, who had only been in NJ for about a year at the time I met him, he had only been on a couple dates after his move here before I met him, and the movie he took his date to (she was someone I went to HS with) was “Saturday Night Fever”. Now I confess, I have never seen the movie in the theaters, it was later movies by Travolta, at least a few, that I liked…but knowing he had seen it, I had to watch it on TV at least once. You know how it is when you’re first dating someone, and you just HAVE to know all the details of whoever they dated before…it was during those times. Gosh that seems so long ago, and it is! 30+ years!
Here’s the classic clip from the movie for you, enjoy if you like this sort of thing, and even if you don’t, continue to pray for the Travolta family.
These remarkable characters were brought to life by Charles Schultz the year before I was born, in daily Peanuts comic strips in 1950. They gained world-wide popularity! Interesting that in my browsing about on the web I find that today marks the anniversary of the publication of the last daily comic strip by Charles Schultz.
This wasn’t the last Charlie Brown comic published, however, he wrote a farewell comic strip that was in the papers the morning after his passing at the age of 77 after battling cancer in February of 2000. If I remember correctly, this was due to be published that date…was not published just because Charles Schultz had died, just one of those heart-warming coincidences?
I remember reading that last comic, reading Charles Schultz’s goodbye message. These were unique comic strips, they always had a little message, and Charlie Brown was a charming underdog that many children could relate to.
As I shared in my previous post, there was a little connection to my husband’s family, as his mother was a teacher, and knew the family of the woman who inspired the Lucy character…Lucy Van Pelt..at least that’s how the family story goes. I always wonder whether she had the same personality…or if she just inspired the name? Lucy started her “life” in the comic as a baby, but later Schultz decided to make her the same age as the other characters.
I’ve mentioned this in a few other spots on the web, but this week, I sorted through a beautiful pile of World War II mail, letters written by a man to his wife every 2-3 days from overseas during 1943-1944. He writes from the time he leaves, to…well, I haven’t read that far yet. There are over 100 letters, so I’m looking forward to reading for a long time to come.
