1976

Elizabeth

The first of August Elizabeth sent me a package containing the mail that had arrived for me at the old farmhouse.  She had opened all of it and discarded the envelops saying that she had done so to save space and weight in mailing them to me.   In the package was a five page letter from her.  The first couple of pages were about business, Elizabeth worked it out with Aunt Iva Mae and assumed the rent for the old house starting August 1st, she included a check from George W. Leitner for water use, he rented the field surrounding the house from Aunt Iva Mae and used the water from the house pump to provide water to the cows, so he wrote me a check each month.  She was barely making ends meet finically, going on about her expenses, asking lightly if I could help pay some of August’s rent.  I had already planned to do so I sent her a check for all of it.  

Elizabeth, who seldom talked about what was going on with her was unusually chatty about her life saying,

She told me about a cat she sort of adopted that had kittens in the barn, she made a strawberry barrel, planted some eggplants, shot and dressed a rabbit that was roaming down the road, went deep sea fishing, re-read John C. Lilly’s book, took a vocational aptitude test which she said “the results of which should be a riot!” which made me laugh for she was a very strange person.  She met a man who took care of the horses in the field across the street, she described “established a strange interaction with, which I do not fully grasp yet, Ah! Marlboro men.”  Oh, and she collected some magic mushrooms and saved some for me.  I was surprised by the whole tone of the letter, when I left we were not talking to each other.

In mail was a postcard I received from Jim Boyd, my next-door neighbor when I lived on Old Archer Road.  It was dated July 11th, a few days after I left, he was in Bogota, Colombia having a great time.  I hoped my new adventure would turn out as well.