August 28, 1973 (Letter from Leslie)

Greetings!  Found this card in a card shop in the mall where Korvettes is located.  Liked the owl on the front and thought the inside words were quite strange so I bought it and am now sending it to you.

This week I am working five nights at Korvettes.  Last night was incredibly busy.  I had close to $400 in my register when I closed out.  For awhile it was just one long rush of people.  It is my second and last week though because I am now a grad assistant at SUNY at Albany starting next week!

On Friday I asked my advisor (who is also associate dean) if I should keep 15 credits or not since I now had a part time job and a loan.  She said try it for a couple weeks.  Later that day she called back and wanted to know if I wanted a full assistantship -- someone had turned one down.  Of course I said yes!  So now I will be working 20hrs/wk:  10 in the library school library and 10 in the media library (will learn how to run all the equipment) and will be paid every two weeks -- $2800 for the academic year.  I can only take 9 hrs a semester so I will be at Albany for two years -- but I am free during the summer.

Just an incredible turn of events.  My car needs a rear wheel bearing so our mechanic friend down the road will fix it for me this weekend.  He test drove it with me and said the transmission is perfect (automatic) and the engine is fine.  The bearing is in bad shape because it can be heard, so I'm not driving it until it is fixed -- am going to go out and start up the engine and let is run a little bit.  The car and insurance are totally paid for and I'm eager to be in it.  May buy a tape deck for it after I've had it awhile.  My license plate number is 99 SRH -- easy to remember.

Yesterday I went shopping in an Indian (India) gift shop and bought two shirt tops and one dress.  I also need to buy a five piece suit for this winter.  I haven't done clothes shopping in a long time so I am enjoying it.

Recently I bought 4 records:  Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon", David Bowie's "Aladdin Sane", Grover Washington's Jr.'s "All the King's Horses", and "Supersax Plays Bird".  Bowie is great!  My favorite song is "Aladdin Sane".  Good rock and roll and I'm really getting into Bowie's voice.  Grover Washington Jr. is also good -- mellow nice to coast along with, lots of back-up so it sounds very rich.  Supersax is the only one I am not totally happy with.  It's old sax solos by Charlie Parker and a couple really swing but the rest sound old.  A very smooth, well done album, though.

Enclosed is a picture of me sitting in my room looking very serious.  The color of the walls is quite accurate.  I need to put up some shelves so I can have some books out and a place to tack up things.

That's all for now.  Take care.