April 22, 1970 (Letter from Gail)

Happy Earth Day!  What did you do today my friend, to help stop the spread of pollution?  I think today I drove my car and littered more than I ever have!  I had the car all evening till about 11:00 and most of the afternoon and with the three cigarette buts, 3 matches, 1 ice cream wrapper that I deposited out of my car window, I'd say I did a great deal to help pollution spread!  I think this whole Earth day thing was a bit much -- it has a good cause -- but a corny way to show it.  EOC had a big program lined up.  Did UB do anything?  Or did they have another riot with smoke bombs and all?  I guess the riot situation at Penn State is really getting bad.  I hope Leslie stays clear of it all.

Nothing much has happened around here lately, for a change.  Over East break (we had a week) I went to Arlington Va and spent the week with my sister and brother-in-law and my new nephew.  My sister had a baby so I went down to give her a hand.  I stayed from Thurs to Thurs.  I had a great time.  My nephew is the greatest!  I love him so much.  I hated to leave him.  I left Wash National Airport at 6:00PM Thurs nite and never got into Bradford till 10:30AM Friday.  15 hrs. late.  You'll never guess what happened!  The plane couldn't land in Bradford cuz of strong winds, I guess the area had a terrible snowstorm that nite, so the plane was gonna land in Erie.  But we couldn't land there cuz the runway was completely ice covered, so we flew on to Cleveland and we spent the night there, or else we would've gone on to Detroit where that flight originates!  There were 7 of us that were supposed to get off in Bradford so we all stuck together like glue.  The airlines put us up in a beautiful motel for the nite and we took an 8:45AM flight the next morning.  There was a girl around my age in our group and she and I shared a room.  I was so thankful she was there and vice versa.  But I had a terrific time, it was a little tense for awhile, still I enjoyed it.  If I had the chance I'd do it again this weekend.  It was an experience I'll never forget and am glad it happened!

I can't believe we only have 3 more weeks of school and 1 week of finals left.  It all went so fast!  When are you finished?  That would be fabulous if you and Mike could go to Calif for the summer.  Oh wow!  I have to take a course at summer school so I'll be stuck in Warren and at Tiny Town again for another summer.  But I swear it's gonna be the last one!!!

Mark will be home this summer so at least I'll have a little company.

Went to Edinboro last wk and made out my schedule for next fall.  It worked out pretty good -- at least I'm satisfied with it now.  Wait, tho.

Well, it's 1:00am.  Guess I'll catch a few winks now.  Take care of yourself and write soon.

P.S.  Please, Paul, be careful of those girls in 482B -- you can never tell what might happen?  Blue painted faces at 5:00am!!

January 21, 1970 (Letter from Gail)

Sorry that I didn't write to you sooner.  But the week I got you letter I was studying for my finals.  God, what a week!  We should be getting our grades tomorrow or Friday.  I know I did good on my sociology test, but the other three -- well, I'd rather not talk about them.  We're on our semester break now.  It's a great feeling not to have any school work hanging over my head for a change.  I luv it!

Oh Paul, I was so sorry to hear what happened to your apartment.  God, what a horrible thing!  Did you report it to the cops?  I hope they can catch the guy who did it.  Great and I'm living in an apartment next year at Edinboro!  I'm scared now.  Think I'll put aside about 5 extra locks plus 4 bolts on the door.  Just to be on the safe side, of course.

Not much has been happening social wise, that is.  Dody is taking me to Bud's (in Jamestown) for dinner tomorrow night.  I'm sorta excited, I've never been there before.  He leaves for main campus this coming Sunday.  I'm gonna miss him.

Hey, how was your New Years Eve?  I haven't seen you in so long, I don't even know what you did New Years Eve.  I had a nice New Years.  I went to this guys house for 4 days.  In fact, I had a great time!!  I went to Penn State last weekend and stayed with Leslie.  We had a great time.  Sat nite we went to see a Paul Butterfield Jazz Blues concert.  It was good.  Heave you ever heard of him?  I never had till I went down there.  He's pretty good.  After the concert we went to an apartment party.  It was fun.  Did you ever play Charades when you're high?  God, I did.  It was hysterical!  I couldn't do anything.  I had "Easy Rider" to do and when I went to make the movie sign -- I said "movie" while I was doing the sign -- plus other dumb stuff like that.  That was the first and last time I got to play Charades!  We got in about 3:30AM.  Then we sat and talked til 5:00AM.  Then I had that damn long bus ride home that day (Sun).  What a trip.  4 hours of pure shit!!

You wouldn't believe how cold it is here!  It's supposed to go as far as -15 tonite.  Oh boy, can't wait.

That's about it from this end.  Take care and keep warm.  Write soon.

October 26, 1969 (Letter from Gail)

If you only knew how sorry I was for not writing to you sooner -- you have my most heart-felt apologies.  Do you accept them and am I forgiven?

It was really great hearing from you and I guess when you lose touch with someone like that over the summer, it makes that first letter in the fall sound so much better.  Right?  My summer sounds about the same as yours. I ate, slept, worked at gold ole Tiny Town, and took a 3 hr. course at EOC for 6 wks.  I hated to start school in the fall because none of the kids that we were really friendly with last year were coming back.  I miss them.  EOC ain't what it used to be.  I got elected to be a member of student govt again this yr and plus on the board -- govt is so-so.  Not too much has been happening in my life so far.  A bunch of us girls went to Shorty's last weekend and then again this past Fri nite.  It was so damn crowded that we all left and went to -- ready -- Pejo's.  God it was funny!  I haven't been there since senior week 1968!  Angie was unreal -- we bought 2 pitchers of beer so she gave us a third one FREE plus a big dish of popcorn!  But seeing as how we were the only people in the joint, she figured she had to be nice to us to get us to come back. There were 56 of us girls and then 7 more kids that go to EOC followed us up there.  It was really beautiful.  Then we stopped off at Shorty's on the way home just long enough to use the bathroom, then we left.  God, if that didn't look obvious!

We had midterms this past week.  Oy vay!  They were so tuff!  But I can't believe 1/2 of the semester is gone already!  Wow!

Last Sun my parents were going down around Penn State to visit some friends, so Sheryl Larson and I went along and they dropped us off at PSU to spend the day with Leslie Stein.  Well we got right before Ridgway and the hood of the car pops up -- right in our faces!  I was panic stricken. The damn thing did it twice.  So my dad bought a chain and chained it down and it was ok for the rest of the trip and on the way home.  To top this off -- my dad made a wrong turn and to get back on the right road he had to cross a median in the road and just as he got on the damn thing, a state trooper comes by and pulls us over.  My father got a $15 fine for driving on the wrong side of the road!  It was quite some day.  I'll say!  I hope I never have to go through it again.  I sat for the rest of the trip (after the hood flew up) with my fingers crossed and my eyes closed.  I was so-o-o scared!!!

Nothing much has happened in Warren lately.  Except it snowed here for 2 days last week.  Ugh!

Congratulations on your new car.  It sounds really nice.  Bring it home some weekend.  I'd like to see it.  What color is it?

I'm so mad at Mark.  I wrote him 3 wks ago and he hasn't answered me back.  Oh well.  Leslie hears from him quite regularly.  He calls her up at lest once a week and he's going down to see her sometime next month.  I guess.  Oh well.  WAHS played Kane yesterday.  We beat them 46-0  That's not saying much for the Dragons though, Kane kicked 14 guys off their team for drinking.  See what I mean.

Take care and come home soon.  Get out of the smog and get some fresh clean country air in your lungs!  Ha!

February 2, 1969 (Letter from Barb)

I've been trying to write to you all weekend -- this go, go, go -- party, party, party life is getting me down.  Yes, right, don't I wish...The collage doesn't make any sense at all -- it's one of those "pick out a page and cut everything out" ones.

Thanks for writing, letters always make ya feel good.  I wasn't surprised to hear that Mike is the same.  He probably has a couple of friends and considers everybody else really "hoody" or dumb -- does he date anybody?  Poor Michael, but what are you going to do -- Mardi's in a bad way -- between freezing weather, crummy social life, school (blah!), dirty kitchens, and pot raids, she's about ready to shove it all.  It takes time to learn how to handle all the shit they dish out to ya at school.  We have a break (ten days) starting Feb 21-March 2.  I really want to go out and see her.  I could pull if off for $30 or $40.  I really can't afford it since I'm a couple hundred short for school anyway, but I think I'll do it anyway.  If I'm gonna go every day and work at that lousy job I might as well do something I want to do with my money.  Right?!

Things are their usual duddy self here but I really don't mind anymore.  My shoot-down from last semester is haunting me.  I just had Dorm Council for one time I came in an hour late last October and got campused for last night -- neat, huh?  I saw Mr. Wonderful at a party Friday night but he didn't speak -- why are guys always so nice, it must be a real effort.

I have a feeling my grades will be at a new all-time low at the end of this semester.  I haven't done one thing yet this semester!  During the week I don't even have time to breathe right.  I have four hours of classes a day -- that's not much at all, but I work 4 hours a day too, so I have time to squeeze in lunch and a cigarette and that's about it.  Then at night I clunk out for a couple hours in a dead sleep, get up, and shit around -- school, what school?  Missed a test on Friday that I'll have to take a zero for, oh yes, life is a shit sandwich and every day is another bite!  This Friday Smokey Robinson is here.  I'm supposed to have a date with some guy who might not go and I've never even met the kid anyway and you know I'd go alone in my jeans and bare feet and stand in the snow to see Smokey Robinson!  Not get this, that's Friday night and Saturday I'm supposed to go down to Penn State to go to the Chambers Bros with some kid I met there last week (went down last weekend, had a great time) but his roommate called me today and said he's been missing all weekend.  They called the cops, the whole bit.  He took all their hash and said he was coming up here to see me and nobody's heard form him. This poor guy takes LSD and is kind of screwed in the head, if ya know what I mean -- Is this making any sense?

Like I said before -- Help!!  Can't wait to get out of here and take off this summer.  We're going up to Cape Cod if it kills us; I can't take another summer at home working at New Process and sitting up in Shorty's everynight.  Oh, I forgot, Surf Club every weekend.  I feel like I should have my Friday night barstool reserved.  We'll do all that stuff at Easter and that'll hold me for awhile.  I go home April 2-7.

So, Paul, you see, Mardi and I need a few words of wisdom -- got any handy?  I imagine Joan needs more than a few -- I haven't heard from her except she sent me a birthday present.  I wonder if she's married to Rick, hehe, unless of course he hasn't gotten over his "fuckin crab yet".  W hat a case that kid is.  Swinging New Years at Renee's.

So you're going out with Gussie at home -- where is your taste?  I'm just kidding you, she's probably a "very fine person", cough.

P.S.  Was your spirit right about Cheryl!???   You mover, you!