Dear Hildie:

 

What an awful anniversary! 52 years since I left on a bus to join the army!  It was a peacetime army, but I still have anxiety dreams about forgetting to read the first sergeant’s roster and missing an assigned  detail. My God, if I have post traumatic anxiety about that nonsense, what about the poor folks who actually got shot at? As you know, I did basic training at Fort Polk, one of the most god-forsaken holes in the country (aren’t they all, if you served there?). Then in 1995, I was sentenced to return there to do archaeology, though they is damn all archaeology to be done, if you can imagine a place all blown to hell. But the National Park Service is adamant about surveying all these barren areas–keeps their people busy inspecting the archaeologists.

 

 

Now, as to calling your son, Murphy,  Beelzebub, well, I think many one of the lesser demons would be more appropriate. But I’m not up on my demonology, so can’t make any suggestions.

 

I was laid low all over again yesterday from the stomach thing. Could it have come from letting Pierre lick me in the face? Well, from any number of sources, I suppose, from the recalled ice cream we’d been saving, to all the nuts I ate up like I was a squirrel saving for winter (which they say, due to el Nino, is going to be cold and nasty).

 

Have to go now. Take care.

 

Love,