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June 04, 2007 |
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Decided To Finish
FOUND by Rick Nichols
in Baltimore, Maryland
This was in a used book. It feels like notes for a speech, but that doesn't seem right.
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Something Naughty April 01, 2006 |
Mr + Mrs ? September 07, 2006 |
Like a Hyena May 16, 2006 |
So Are You a Seeker... December 30, 2001 |
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We collect FOUND stuff: love letters, birthday cards, kids' homework,
to-do lists, ticket stubs, poetry on napkins, telephone bills, doodles -
anything that gives a glimpse into someone
else's life. Anything goes...
college...
Talk about over-use of ellipses.
Evidently our writer has problems ending things conclusively, like relationships and sentences.
I don't know what it was, but here were the impressions I got from this. 1) Emily found out he was gay. 2) His grandmother doesn't know him very well but he wants her desperately to be proud of him.
Oops, Jan, that should be grammar!
Yeah, I caught that typo, too. That's what I get for casting stones. I've learned my lesson and will never comment again unless the "find" elicits something like, "Awww, that's soooooo sweet..."
It seems like the letter was written to a dead Grandmother - like a link to the woman he remembers, keeping her up to date with the life he is still living. Maybe just me romanticizing a simple letter to his Grandma, but still...I like it. I think we should write letters more often
I think this is sweet. Reminds me of letters I used to send my grandma, before she passed away. Although this really doesn't have a man's "voice" to it, does it?
can't believe no one's mentioned the misuse of the semi-colon. is this a young man just out of seminary?
AWW come on it could be worse.
YO G Ma what up?
Fo shiz this is my best bizzall year izzall ever!
I've got a whole crew I have been leading for a couple of weeks now. West Side!
Me and that BIACH split, but we still kick it.
Yo tell G Pa Wa sup, PEACE!
...the gender realignment surgery?
Creating quick back-stories for people on the street is a favorite pass time. This find fits that mold.
The person who sent this in thought it might be notes for a speech, and I got the same impression. Maybe he was making notes before telephoning his grandmother...
ellipses as a symptom of difficulty ending things... I never thought of them as that way... I tend to use them a lot... I'm going to have to take that into consideration...
I have decided to finish decorating the cage in the basement...Emily says she doesn't like the sparse quality of the cement walls...
To Tulla in LA.... Love it!
Oh! I am SO guilty of using ellipes to excess. I never thought of it as a cross-section of my psychology. That is truly something to examine.
I wonder if these are notes of a line of conversation for over the phone? I used to know someone who would right out a list of things to say/tell family on the phone to keep them focused during long distance.
I hope it's not a letter.
I don't care for letters that just begin a with the person's name. I like a 'Dear' in there. That's just how I roll.
Interesting find. I'd like to read more.
Someone in my family used to send letters overusing ellipses. It drove me crazy, 'cause, to me, it was like they were talking to me, mumbling with their head down.
Make eye contact! Emote! Punctuate!
I think the last word is "abruptly."
I don't like this new spam filter thing. I got the answer wrong yesterday and had to re-type my whole comment. Apparently, when it asks you to complete the phrase, "Jack and Jill went up the ____," the correct answer is not "butt."
dude, why can't it jus be a LETTER TO HIS GRANDMA?!?! i did not think it was notes, nor did i think he was gay, nor do i give a shit about his grammar. he wasn't writing it for an audience of critics, he was updating his grandma on his life and career...get over it
I agree with maya. But there is a history to everything, and also gramatical errors.
I like the man's handwriting. It is very clean and loopy, I wonder if it was a girl. I usualy don't see too many men with that sort of handwriting.
hmm
Maya, when you write letters to your grandma, do you generally do it on note cards with a big circled number at the top?
No one has mentioned the circled "1" at the top. That really makes it look like notes for a telephone conversation to me. Maybe he wrote out one for every family member?
And to contribute to the grammar criticism..
Things down here are going really WELL.
And I like the idea about Emily finding out he was gay. That seems probable.
Thank you Maya. I agree with you. There are some men that love their grandma's and just want to keep in touch with them. Maybe she raised him; therefore, very connected to her. He seems like a super guy!
i like how the world is ending Jan. 1, 2079.
1
who the hell writes notes for telephone conversations?
2
haven't you ever, especially when young, written a letter on anything handy, be it notecards or whatever is around?
3
have you ever written a letter with multiple pages that have to be numbered?
4
jesus, for such an anal-retentive group that has a major freak out about not spelling grammAr correctly, you seem to not see what is obviously, to at least maya and maria, a letter to grandma. and why does she have to be dead, for heaven's sake?
5
thank you for listening to my rant. i can't believe you people sometimes.
6
flargy is wicked.
when i first saw this letter, i thought he was writing this to his grandma, but his grandma has passed away, because he says "things down here are really going good" sometimes when people close to you die, you feel the need to still tell them things, like if you talk to them when you visit their grave. i think this is the same sort of thing.
also Kari- i write circled numbers on the top of letters i write to people, when they are more then one page long so they know what order they go in. it also looks like he didn't finish his last sentance, so there probably is more to this letter.
To Maya and Her Adherents:
Half the fun of this stuff is hypothesizing as to the origins of the finds, and sometimes that means coming up with wild stories. If all you care about is the sentimentality factor, maybe you should go hang out in the Hallmark aisle at your local pharmacy, and leave us imaginative folks in peace (however silly that peace may be).
Flargy: brilliant! Thanks for starting my day with a good chuckle.
Lucy in the sky, YOU ROCK!!!!
Has a very sweet nature to it. I wonder why their marriage plans were changed?
maya, don't be such a buzz kill. you're missing the whole point.
Good one Flargy ! haha. I think the page is numbered because Gramma gets confused , and which order is one less thing to worry about .Same thing for the writing style ... one clear cut point at a time , easier for her to understand .
Yes , I see that I missed a letter !
I agree with Maya and Lucy. The thing is, there's a difference between hypothesizing about the origins of finds (which really is half the fun of this site) and being a stick-in-the-mud critic. That's what drives me crazy about the comments. So not everyone is a grammarian. Relax. None of us are impressed by anyone's pointing out errors.
he is not good, he is well
I should really write to my grandma. I think she would appreciate that. It would be helpful to number the pages in an obvious way so that she can keep them in the proper order.
***
on a side note, the writer did not say that they broke up with Emily, just that their plans have changed. Maybe they decided on a fall wedding rather than a spring wedding? Where's the hope people?
Kiki, it's supposed to be spelled "Keekee."
Jumpin' Jesus on a pogo stick. Get a dictionary, would you?
I don't think they're getting married, Red. He said they were changing their plans for marriage, not changing plans for a wedding.
And if these were notes for a phone call (I don't use them so I don't know) wouldn't it just be keywords? Like: Work good, leading fellowship, no marriage etc. That what makes me think it is a letter, even though it is weird to be on a note card.
Whoo hoo! Here is to the back story and the sarky comment.
UK caveat- I am half in the bag whilst y'all are surfin and commenting on office time
Why hasn[t anyone commented on the fact that he is now leading a fellowship??? Does that mean that he has started to go to AA or that he is invovled in a radical gay sex ring?? Please someone with imagination help me!!!!
(yes the over use of puncuation was intentional)
Dacia... Good call. Sounds plausible. Why else reference "down here", writing on 3x5s, absence of "Dear", the writing in the style of someone's thought process rather than for the reader.
This is something I would do. Sit down, find something to write on, grind the pen down into the paper to write a malice-laden number one, start with all the ho-hum crap, get to the bottom of the page, realize I really don't have a whole lot to say to warrant wasting another index card, shove the used index card into the book I was using for a "desk" and saying, "Fuck grandma". Sorry Grandma.
Funny grandma story, though. She was riding a bike and forgot to put her feet down when she stopped and broke her arm. My dad and his sisters decided to put her in a nursing home for the time so they could take care of her. She was not happy about this. When she had a friend that was going to come see her, the friend called my grandma and asked her how to get to the nursing home. My grandma said, "It's easy. Just break your arm."
Flargy, it's good to see you being funny again ; )
No matter how many times I view things with that magnifying glass, it still never gets old.
i think this was written by a lesbian.
i am so guilty of over use of ellipses.
and i do think it is a direct reflection on my life.
i have a hard time ending things, and transistioning and..... well, thinking in general.
not my favorite find, but as usual, i did enjoy the comments.
have a happy day kids.
I think it's funny that everyone assumes it's a guy. I've got a couple theories myself, and chances are none of them are true. But this is the fun of the Find, that we can only speculate and make our own stories of what we don't know.
1. This was a girl - look at the handwriting.
2. Because it's on a notecard, and numbered, and so choppy, it could very well be a note that was never intended to be given. Maybe his grandmother was dead, or maybe he just felt like writing it. I do that; I write things on notecards that I don't intend for anyone else to see, even if it is addressed to someone, and number them to give them a bit of time reference without giving too much away.
3. It was a telephone speech. If the person's not too close to Grandma, he/she doesn't want awkward pauses, so has things written down. I've done that too.
4. I actually think it's probably a guy with REALLY good handwriting (I know several guys like that, and it wasn't uncommon in that time period), who is leading the fellowship of a church, and called of a marriage for unknown reasons. Maybe he's a pastor, which is why his old job is ending soon.
Who knows?
Okay, I'm curious. What book was this found in? Maybe "Chicken Soup for the Grandson off to God School's Soul"?
And maybe the letter is on an index card because that's what sermons are written on. He's hoping to impress upon Granny how seriously he's taking his studies. Awwww.
I think it's a monologue. An actor getting ready for an audition? That's why the punctuation is like that, for him to remember how he wanted to say the lines.
The best year ever..... Was it 1978 or was it earlier? Who finishes something on the first of the year? I thought that was when you started something. What was it that he started to finish but didn't finish on page one, asumming there was a page two. Well, at least Grandma got a positive letter from her spirital grandson. That is if the letter was ever mailed in the first place.
I'm enthused about the idea of using hyphens en lieu of forward slashes to separate the elements of the date provided.
1-1-79 > 01/01/79
So efficient!
Behn, I've always used hyphens. When you consider that my handwritten /s look awkwardly similar to my 1s, the - is the far better option. Also, it just seems easier.
I think it sounds like the letters I write to my deceased grandmother because it starts with "things are going good DOWN HERE"
however, it could just as easily be to a living grandmother and he lives south of her.
I just thought this was a nice guy writing to his granny and he chose to use index cards because guys probably didn't use stationery back in the day. In my mind, his life is going well but some things have changed enough, like deciding to finish seminary to become a pastor, that it would be better for Emily and him to postpone the wedding until they are on their feet financially. Or maybe they changed their plans because he decided he definitely wanted to become a pastor and she wasn't so hip on the idea but is not quite yet ready to give up because she would feel guilty.
The numbering didn't bother me. My grandma would number her pages when she wrote letters. Of course, she would write five to ten page letters and virtually all one, long, run on sentence. Page numbers were a must in her case, lest you lose your place when the stationery fell out of your hand.
<sigh> I miss Grandma. I was too lazy to write letters as a kid, even though pen and paper was all you had at the time. For me, the telephone was the way to go. In this day and age, I'd write her a letter and email it to her if she were alive, because I'm still too lazy to use pen and paper (especially without a spell checker...CHA!).
Jo , you're cold . For someone with nothing to say , you say a lot .
lucy:
1) I do
2) no
3) yes
4) she's deaf, not dead
5) likewise
6) flargy is flatulent
Oh, NOW I GET IT!
Lucy wants to be today's judgenmental bitch.
How clever...
He's answering the questions from Grammy's last letter.
late in the night said:
Jo , you're cold . For someone with nothing to say , you say a lot .
Ouch! That really hurt! I should probably kill myself. Gramma! I'm coming home!
I say "down here" all the time, especially since I live South of where my family lives, ie "I'll be up there tomorrow" - "It's already started raining down here." This is how everyone I know talks.
I really doubt he's writing to his dead grandmother.
Actually, Red, I think he's "down here" in Hell, and writing to his grandmother in Cincinnati. She's probably a bigwig at WKRP or something.
Simmer down Jo.
Uh Tiphanie... Since 'marriage' is STILL not commonly 'allowed' between persons of the same sex and "Emily" is commonly a woman's name it's really not so "funny" that everyone assumed it was a guy. Not that it couldn't happen, but in all likelihood... :)
Sue from tomorrow's comments, Now THIS is Palmer Method...
(...yes the ellipses are intentional)
I agree with the notes theory. He wants to make sure he mentions key things that he feels his grandmother would like to know, which explains the use (over and over) of the ellipsis. He was using it to separate thoughts, yet it takes up less space than bullet points.
"I really doubt he's writing to his dead grandmother."-Red
I write to my dead grandmother all the time, and I know I'm not the only one who writes/speaks to the dead on a regular basis.
P.S.-I'm not saying he is for sure writing to the dead, just that it's not as unlikely as you seem to think.
I like how old some of these things are. '79? wow.