9:45 A.M., 8 October 1967
Dearest Momsette,
I had no plan to write you today as I wanted to spend the whole morning in bed instead. However, I changed my mind quite suddenly after my breakfast. I was about to throw the table napkin that our plates are placed on every meal, when I thought it would be nice and novel to write you a letter on it. A smile slipped out of my look. “What is that amused look for?” someone beside me quipped. “Nothing great,” I dropped, and pretended to be amused by the epigram on the seal: Dilexi Veritatem which just means “I chose the truth”. How do you like the stupid idea? Don’t tell me to keep on doing this from now on. I may get caught and be teased.
Yesterday I stayed in the lib. only until 6 p.m. Somewhat to my dislike–since I brought home with me 2 interesting anatomy books that I planned to read after dinner–I had to go to Philadelphia. The Bryn Mawr College Alumnae Association sent me a free ticket to a concert with a request that I use it. You see, it was $88 by subscription price. What alternative could I lamely offer? So I left after dinner for the concert of the Philadelphia Orchestra seasonally held at the Academy of Music of Philadelphia which is on Broad St. that cuts across Market St. My ticket was at the orchestra section, in the middle and second row from the stage, not a Lodge or Balcony. After all I had no binoculars that pasiklab ladies–which I bet you ravishing bride have an ambition to become (I guess you get tickled by this thought!)–studiedly clip on their eye-shadowed eyes. So perhaps the Philad. music elite were up there.
The conductor or music director was Eugene Ormandy whose Orch. records are reserved for Columbia records. Ormandy is about 75, perhaps smaller than I, and limps. His conducting was to me precise, neat, without histrionics. The pieces played are by Mozart (Symp. 35 in D Major–”Haffner”), Haydn (Conc. in E flat major for trumpet and orch.), Kanitz and Prokofieff. For reasons of familiarity, the first two struck me as marvelous. The trumpeter for Haydn’s, Gilbert Johnson, got 3 standing ovations and all the mannerisms that the leisured have time to practice. He was good for me also, but I was disturbed by his blown common carotid artery and veins. Don”t those supply blood or nutrients to the brain? Yah, one of them becomes the basilar artery at the base of the pons and mesencephalon and which send the choroid plexus in the posterior portion of the 3rd ventricle and ventro-anterior of the caudate nucleus, etc. etc. But no regret after all. How I just wished you were with me, who would put on your overcoat at the exit and the like, which some people at times confuse for culture or civilization. I would have done such affectation and walked with you afterwards at Freedom Park. So much for wishes and ifs and whens.
I arrived ”home” at 11:38 p.m. Then I took my shower and wrote Inay Rose [my mother–ethel] a letter. I “courted” her! I thought her letter deserved a letter in return. Then I went to bed at 4:09 a.m. That is why I planned to sleep this morning and just go to the lib. this afternoon.
By the way I read from the N.Y. Times that Pinter [on whose plays I wrote my undergraduate thesis–ethel] was around last week for the Broadway premiere of The Birthday Party and that he is going to appear in the London movie version of this. I failed to tell you of this last week.
THE weather is getting colder–40F at night. Leaves are turning gold and aged. Day by day they fall and the campus is full of dried brown things that don’t look like leaves anymore. Only the ivy on Bryn Mawr walls still cling some more to dear summer life. The squirrels hop to catch more fat for winter fire. Birds call each other in rasping foreboding and fan their wings on the rooftop of Taylor Hall perhaps to beat the freezing wind. Soon this changing face of earth will get more and more stark. For fall’s time course is not an asymptote. At some point it cuts a corner and goes down to disappear. Only some bits of happy thoughts stay to be company to the winter of one’s path. Happy thoughts of youth at some illicit conclave where death was never minded. Far away, at homeland and at dim past.
Is not this a la [name of a Filipino author known for romantic language–ethel]? I am exercising a ”talent” that I may be forced to deem a substitute if I fail to get a Ph.D. Who knows I may even replace Cachupoy? Pinter cannot beat that. I tell you he is no match at all. Do you want me to write a play for Lopito [another Filipino comedian known during the war and the ’50s–ethel]? Never mind, I don’t want to brag about my genius in public except in the whole of San Nicolas [fg’s hometown–ethel].
Before signing out, how are you and Buch (Iban? or Guencion?) [names for our coming baby that fg was toying with. He thought it would be a boy, but it was a girl, who was eventually named ‘Vietrez’.–ethel]. Tell Boboy and Fevi that they will reach their B-day gifts here. Anyway they will come. Just let Boboy read this: BOBOY: HAPPY BIRTHDAY, from Daddy. Be good. For Fevi: ALAGAAN MO SI BUCHOCOY KAPAG WALA ANG MOMSETTE, from Daddy. Be good also.
How do you feel now? Can you not write me oftener and longer? I have no problems yet with studies but I miss you for a lot of things. I feel if you are here, I shall do better. See to your health.
Regards to Inay [Vargie, fg’s mother] and my relatives. Tell them I am glad for their care of you. I owe them much. Tell Inay to take vitamins. Make the kids’ health tough for travel.
When you come, I shall buy a T.V. set. [At the time, a new contraption.–ethel] Learn to drive…me crazy. [fg meant ”drive” in the literal sense, that of driving a car, only to give it an amusing, unexpected twist.–ethel]
Your loving husb.,
fg
Received October 20, 1967