For forty years and two

Columbus, Ohio

Spring has arrived in Ohio. This is a flat state where red pigs graze in bright green fields and where farms are neat and prosperous -- not like New York farms. We roll along through dozens of villages and cities whose names we never heard. They are typical of the Middle West. The oldest inhabitant is generally standing somewhere pulling a long white beard, the smithy door is generally open and the sound of the anvil to be heard, the village flapper is generally flapping up and down along Main Street in front of a group of jobless youths who help hold the drug store up, and somewhere there is always a housewife sweeping off a porch or carrying a spadeful of manure to the garden. Toward evening the country scenes become idyllic -- the sort of thing you have seen in the moving pictures and never quite believed in. Sheep come drifting up long green lawns where poplars throw interminable shadows, come drifting up and stand like statues beneath white plum blossoms, while far down the lane and off in the fields a little Ford tractor moves like a snail across the furrows. Lilacs are in full bloom and the lavender iron-wood blossoms are coloring all the roads.

Ohio State University

I send my love to you

26 April 1922

A thing one very seldom hears

So you've been gay for forty years

Been jolly all through smiles and tears

I am hoping this will arrive on April 27 to greet you on your 42nd wedding anniversary, but I am a little late in starting it as usual. Your letter reached me at Mansfield, O. a couple of days ago where it was forwarded from East Aurora. I guess I told you in one of my previous letters that the way to reach me by mail is via 159 Park Place, East Aurora. Mr. Cushman does the forwarding.

So you've been gay for forty years

Dearest Mum,

For forty years and two --

So you've been gay for forty years

I hardly think I have written you since we left East Aurora a week ago Monday in the afternoon. We remained over Easter at the Cushman's and had Easter Sunday dinner at the Roy Croft's. The next day we left, clanking merrily out of town with our bed upon our back as goes the turtle…

Beta Theta Pi house

Tell Father he ought to read Benchley's Of All Things if he wants a good time. I read it the other day in Mansfield. It's about as funny as anything there is on the market today with the exception, of course, of the Cushman-White travelogues which are simply killing.

I've given up cigarettes until I get to California. Isn't that a good idea? Cush thinks it's great. I also am looking forward soon to giving up clean shirts. They're worse than cigarettes. I'm on my last one now.

The Ford is a tremendous expense. Repairs have cost up 75 cents since we left New York --50 cents for a busted radiator and 25 cents for a fan belt. Pretty heavy going.

New York is the state for roads. Here there are pikes, which are cement on one side and dirt on the other. When you meet another car if you are on the cement side all is well, and when you are on the dirt side you steer to one side, sink down indefinitely, and then get out and lift the car back onto the road again. That's why Fords can go places where heavier cars have difficulty. Whenever your Ford shows signs of weakening, you can lift it back where it belongs.

Congratulations again on your anniversary. Have a good time at Atlantic City honey mooning. Love to Father -- tell him I received his letter and thank you. I mailed the slip to the Trust Company the other day in Mansfield.

We'll be leaving for Kentucky on Friday morning. This place is so beautiful we want to stay for a day or so to become acquainted with it.

Yours, Andy