Dear Hildie:

Well, Friday was Summer’s birthday. Hard to believe it was 44 years ago she was born in New Orleans. I remember that as soon as she was born, which was in the evening, her grandfather dragged me off to a Saints game in old Tulane Sugar Bowl stadium. Jesus, I’d as soon have watched the grass grow.

The Jeep quit again, this time in the parking lot opposite Reginelli’s pizza place, right down from Henry’s. Sunday morning it started right up but we left it parked at Henry’s and will see what Wallace finds out.  I suspect it’s an ignition switch or wire, since the lights go on but it wouldn’t even grind and the battery charger didn’t do any good. So they’ll have to take the Explorer to Crowley tomorrow for their tromp through the rice fields.

I’ve been reading Evan Thomas’ BEING NIXON. I’ve read a good many Nixon books, because I find him such a fascinating character–Even Stephen Ambrose’s three volume biography, though you can’t trust Ambrose’s scholarship–He invents things. But Nixon has always intrigued me, because he was brilliant and, at first, very principled. And he got terrible treatment from the press and the East Coast establishment. If only he’d not been so thin-skinned he might have risen to be a great man, instead of a petty revenge-seeker and intriguer. I think Castro would have been gone after 1961, but we may have had a crisis with the Soviets over Viet Nam, because I think Nixon would have jumped in there with both feet.

Oh, well, speculation.

Take care.

 

Love,

M