Pop writes of the virtues of pluralism and self-reliance.
Norfolk, Conn.
August 16, 1962
Dear Beth:
Thanks for your nice letter and the nice things you said in it.
I guess the best way if I ever decide to write is for you to take some occasional letters that I write and put them together. Believe me you have my permission to do so and if you make any MILLIONS on them (which I doubt) you can just send me enough to buy my ship.
Gosh! I have been away from the water so long that I almost said “boat”. I am getting to be a regular landlubber, as THAT would be a cardinal sin for an old sailor, would it not?
I really will try sometime to get together a few things, but you know mostly the only things I wrote is something that came to be at “the sour of the moment”. Yesterday for instance I got a request for money from my Class (Ellsworth High School, Ellsworth, Maine, class of 1923) for flowers for one of my old school teachers, and I think if I had not been all ready to hit the road I would have written an article about schoolteachers.
Times surely have changed. I know the reason that I loved this one so was because for one thing she was young and beautiful, and when I was a boy they just seemed to hire mostly “old crones”. She was “a breath of Spring” in an otherwise “staid and dull School”.
Being young she understood the young and was a lot of fun. Also in those days (I sound like the 17th century don’t I) NO Schoolteacher smoked or went to dances, or went to anyone’s house that was not approved by the School Board, the local Banker, Judge Etc. She did however. She just shook her “pretty head” at conventions of the time and got away with it.
And HOW she could dance, and that is one thing that I could and still can do to perfection. I used to go to any dance I could find and could have danced all night, but of course (and perhaps THAT was a good thing) one or both of your parents went along with you when you were of high school age.
It seems so hard to believe that she is now gone, and that she ever had grey hair or got old, but of course she must have been 60 and I was 16 and she was about 22 or 23 at the time. Anyway may God rest her soul in peace; and if there are any dancing Angels may she relive the days when she was such a pretty girl and such a joy to us Senior boys.
She also “stood the old town on its ear” by marrying a Catholic boy. Danny Harrington who is now the Postmaster in Ellsworth, Maine. Most of us were Protestants of course and had been warned that it was almost dire disaster to even look at a Catholic Church.
ME? I have been to their Church more than my own, for in between my seagoing cruises I worked in New York City and went around mostly with young Irish girls, and again were they beautiful! Fresh from the Auld Sod, with clear starry eyes and such lovely innocence as you do not see today in young girls.
Most of them went to night school to improve themselves and also to save money to bring a brother or a sister or their parents over here. Yes sir! I have bended a knee at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, The church of the Little Flower and many, many more and I can’t see but what I am just the same as I would have been (in those days) to listen to Hellfire and Brimstone in my own church.
My poor dear Mother, God rest her soul, was horrified and used to say “but Leon how can you STAND all those Foreigners?” I said “Mother, my best friend is an Irish boy. I room with him. My next best friend is a Greek and next to him a Philippine. My girl is “Sure now, from County Cork itself”, and you must remember that if you took what YOU call all the foreigners out of New York City, there just would not be any city, as there are probably less than 50,000 of us full blooded Yankees, while there are some 5,000,000 of mixed races.”
I don’t say that I am not proud that I am a Yankee. I am! Not for the fact that I belong to that breed though, but for the way I was brought up, and that was to work and give a man a days work for a days pay, to be honest and to be thrifty, and if the going got tough, to just tighten our belts and go without, instead of asking the county, the State or the Federal Government for a handout. I shall fight and hate those things until my dying day. I have brought up my five sons the same way. David for instance who is getting married the 25th (to a nice Italian Catholic girl) is right now working NINETY hours a week. Nights as a waiter in a “swank” eating place, and days taking care of disturbed children in the Springfield Child Study Home. He has what he needs bought and PAID for, some money in the Bank, and a job for both himself and Angela when they come back from their honeymoon. Bobby worked all summer at the Music School here in Norfolk, and when that closed the other day, he went to work for the Town the next morning oiling and tarring roads. I just could not send the five of them to College without they helped themselves a great deal.
Oh! Well I better get going or else Newton will find another salesman. Thanks again and maybe (just maybe) I will get to Iowa in 1963 and we will plan our book. Huh?
Sincerely,
Leon R. Sinclair
Tags: Pop's Letters
