Dear Dad, Send Money – Letters from Students in the Middle Ages
medievalists.net
medievalists.net
Basically his Mother kept all the letters/postcards (~700) he sent home during his time traveling the World with the State Department. He recently began digitizing them to compile a book. It is almost a re-life Forest Gump story...a man in Moscow at the height of the cold war; being in Vietnam 6 years before the War and seeing the stage being set; camping in the Himalayas watching Chinese aggression against Buddhism; commenting on Black Churches being bombed in the South back home, etc...But really what is most striking is we think communication has changed so much in 50 years (internet, social media) but there is no doubt what we communicate is otherwise unchanged, like OP students requesting money in the middle ages.
For those with interest here are a few letters, interested to hear the reaction of anyone outside friends/family: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/wudj58edm2fjqd9/AAAQuGGfqE61orF5a...
Would he mind a suggestion on the title? If this book is as good as the letters you shared, people will be reading it 10, 20, 30 years from now. So "50 Years Ago" is a bit of a moving target. Not sure if it would be an improvement to just mention the actual decades in the subtitle, or a reference to the events of the time, or maybe just leave out the "50 Years Ago" entirely since as you noted this is really timeless. Just food for thought.
Please put up that email subscription form! :-)
p.s. Any chance of an ebook or Kindle edition?
Clickable link. Looking forward to reading the rest !
On the link you posted I just read the first article - and its dated Jan 5 1960. Are you sure its not 1961 - in the letter he says 1961 is on its way.
>>While everything looks so bright for 1965 in America, it is very moving to see a country, or live in a country, where everything will deteriorate further during the year to come. Hardships on the average man will increase, prices will rise, unrest will continue, and more human freedoms will be turned over to the central government, who in turn will botch up things even more. It is a pathetic situation here.
The list of bars and parties a student has to attend before graduating grows too long to be put on a letter.
The response was: "Marcus Tullius Cicero is one book. Here I send five royals, so you can send back two".
"you can scarcely imagine how expensive our text books are. Having tried to save some money through the purchase of a second-hand edition of Euclid's Elements, I am at risk of failing that class. The only change is that for this year's edition for some reason all the postulates have been renumbered, making it impossible for me to use the text in class."
"For you must know that without Ceres and Bacchus Apollo grows cold."
Ceres is the goddess of fertility. Bacchus the god of booze.
Although your interpretation of Ceres would make this a much more interesting thing to write home to dad about.
But I kept the tradition going - first telling mom and dad how I'm getting well along with studies!
Great times
Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express'd in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man, And they in France of the best rank and station Are most select and generous, chief in that.
Neither a borrower nor a lender be; For loan oft loses both itself and friend, And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.