Nothing says Modern and Air Cooled like a picture of a Conestoga wagon in the desert with a cactus.Envelope postmarked Detroit, Michigan, 10:30 a.m. July 9, 1945
Two enclosures: single-leaf flyer on Mammoth Cave (at Put-in-Bay) and four-page glossy black-and-white newspaper, “Lake Erie Breeze,” Summer 1945 edition
Sunday, July 8, 1945
Hi there—
Well, we went to Put-in-Bay yesterday. It is up in Ohio in Lake Erie, not Lake Huron. It wasn’t a bad place, except there were millions of June Bugs. There were piles of dead ones all over. One good thing about June Bugs is that they don’t bite. We saw the Mammoth Caves. We walked down some stairs and as soon as we were down about fifteen or twenty feet, it got very cold, and it stayed that way. There was a lake down in the bottom which had very clear water and was perfectly pure. The temperature of the cave is 45°F. all year-round. After seeing the lake we went through a tunnel, around which were small stalagmites ? (the ones on the top of a cave). I guess if you have seen Carlsbad Caverns this would be a hole in the ground, but being I haven’t, I liked it. We didn’t [do] anything special the rest of the day.
Today we mo[w]ed Bruce’s aunt’s lawn and then went to his Aunt Jennie’s house for dinner. We had pot roast and a regular home cooked dinner. You should be glad that you have meat out there. Here, it is really scarce.
After dinner, we went to the ball game with tickets that Mr. Cameron bought for us. It was a double-header between N.Y. & Detroit. New York won the first game 8-6 & Detroit the second, 3-2. Eddy Mayo is now playing for Detroit, & he hit a homer in the first game. Joe Hoover is also playing for Detroit.
We just finished dinner and are going over to Dearborn to do our washing and to stay with some of Bruce’s friends over there. They are leaving now, so I must say good-bye.
I hope everyone is all right. Say hello to Mary, when you write her. Thanks!
Love
Dick
3 comments:
"being I haven't" for "since I haven't" is an interesting structure.
205,000 Google hits for it! (vs. 26.7 million for "since")
"being as I haven't": 1.6 million
"being as how I haven't": 98,500
"being that I haven't": 7 million
People use absolute clauses naturally in most languages, and people understand them naturally too, as long as you don't ask anyone to explain what they mean or how they work.
Penn Jillette famously isn't bright enough to understand the grammar of the absolute clause in the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment, which is crucial to understanding the intent of the rule. (I say this as someone who generally likes and respects Jillette.)
When people have to think about what they're writing down, you start to see a tendency to slide over into more elementary constructions, like the dependent clause.
My uncle was a great lover and observer of language all through his adult life. It's fun to see his ear developing in his teenage years.
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