A Conversation with Elizabeth
1999
Good Morning

From:          Elizabeth 
To:            LMixson@PEC.com
Sent:          Thursday, January 7, 1999 9:28 AM
Subject:       Good Morning
 
I hope you're doing well.  I feel pretty good this morning.  I woke up just before 5:30 and as it had warmed up and the rain had quit I was able to walk 30 minutes.  I had to just go in a circle around the apt. complex as it was still quite dark, but it was pleasant. (I could have walked down some other ways, but not too long back there was a fairly brutal rape in some complexes not extremely far from me.  It was in the evening when a woman was walking her dog, between about 9-10 I think.  So for a while I'm being extremely careful, as opposed to just careful). 
 
I feel good as well because I finally got a nasty situation in my apt. straightened out by requesting a new refrigerator Wed. morning when I paid my rent.  I don't think they gave me a brand new one, but it is certainly a newer model than the one I had.  It was nasty because it kept dripping and water was pooling in the bottom, and would mold and even run on the floor. I kept promising that I would get it cleaned out enough to ask for a swap, but I kept having to delay it.  Finally, I got up Wed. morn. and got it ready to swap out.  I really enjoyed the time after I walked and showered as well, mostly organizing some law notes, and scanning through some books.  Then I felt good about getting to work early enough to have 10-15 minutes sitting in the cafeteria to read, which is very quiet before 8.  I am glad it is a little warmer, the 7's and 18's were a little much.  So, how is your new piano.  I'd actually love to have one myself.  When I was growing up my friend/neighbors had a piano and I thought that was so neat.  A man downstairs in my apt., I believe, has two pianos in his living room.  One looks almost like a grand or semi-grand (?).  I don't know him well at all as he keeps to himself.  Well, I thought I'd write early.  For this "term" there will be a class in the library in the mornings for about an hour or so.  I can't do much when they are here, so I will probably write then, and may even study a little.  There are always classes in here, but one dr. always has his leave at about 8:00.  This dr. holds his starting at about 8:30.  Oh well, I'm not saying much.  I did have an interesting dream last night.  I was either looking or shopping for used books.  There is a book I read as a child called Girl of the Limberlost (one of my favorite books of all time), and one I re-read sometime since I've been in Montgomery. There were several copies in the store.  I picked up one and the pages of the book were interspersed with money--mostly dollar bills, but there were quite a few of them.  I showed the "clerk" but she seemed uninterested ?) or unconcerned. 

I had never heard of the book A Girl of the Limberlost at the time Elizabeth wrote this but years later I came across a reference to it again and put it on my “to read” list but then forgot about it for a couple years. Then in 2024 I was going on a camping trip in Key West Florida, which is an eight hour drive from Gainesville, so I got the audio version of the book and listened to it on the way down to Key West. I could see why it was one of Elizabeth’s favorite books, the girl in the book sounded so much like Elizabeth, or should I say Elizabeth was so much like the girl in the book. Elizabeth loved exploring nature, gathering and collecting things, Elziabeth loved reading and knowledge. I learned never to question her about such things as she was always right. After listening to the book, I wondered if Elizabeth’s mother was anything like the mother in the book. I new Elizabeth’s mother was from England, but she never said much about her, but she did once say, “My mother would always introduce my sister to her friends, but I would be standing right there and she wouldn't even mention me.”, which made me think that she had a difficult relationship with her mother.  It is odd coincidence that in the book the girl struggles with getting money to go to school and, here in at this time, Elizabeth struggled with money to go to law school when comes across the book filled with money.

Snow Morning