Letters Home From College

My sister found a pack of letters when going through some boxes a couple of weekends ago from my parent's house. As she unknowingly unfolded an era from our family history, she gasped. They were letters that my dad had written home to my grandparents from college. They kept every single one. It was obvious that they wrote back and forth, but we did not have my grandmother's matching letters (I guess a college boy has no where to store such things in his dorm room nor probably the foresight to hold on to what were at the time "letters from mom"). His letters were coming home about every third day. Probably an immediate response to her letters.
It was amazing to read about his every-day-life, especially to this bloggie-blogger who believes in capturing every-day-life moments (the whole reason I got into this whole "blog thing").
Seeing his very distinctive handwriting on his stationary sent goosebumps up and down my arms. I love his handwriting. As for the stationary, well, I'm southern through and through and I have to admit that I ran a finger over it to see if it was engraved or embossed. I regret to report, my southern belles, that it was embossed. BUT! We'll chalk that up to his version of being "a poor college kid."
As I leafed through these letters, stories of school, tennis, ping pong (boy did he love ping pong), college football and basketball games, the work-load, his roommate, Wayne, and much much more came alive through his words that I could almost hear him saying as though he were reading them to me himself.
A few times he would say something sly and write out a "heh- heh" afterwards. If you knew my dad, you can hear it right now as you read it *smile*.
I really laughed when I read about how much laundry was coming home (yes ladies, he mailed home his dirty laundry for my grandmother to wash and she mailed it right back usually with some cookies or fudge or whatever he demanded.... but we'll get to that later).
I tried to pace myself so that I would continue to have something to read every night before bed, but I have to admit that I have no self control and I devoured them all in one night.
It was neat to read from such innocent times about people who were more "Cleaver" than June and Beaver themselves! (no, seriously). The language and topics were comforting to read.
I'll be sharing some of the stories and quarks very soon, so stay tuned!

My dad is younger than his "college years" in this pictures, but I love it so much I thought I'd include it.