Jim
What does a ladybug eat? Clark Bars.
Journal, January 5, 1959
First day in office. Radiator cooling at 2:00 p.m.… Money short. Friends depressed and depressing. Houses nonexistent … Truth is I hate wooden houses and especially white ones … Last month probably the most miserable in my life. Ladybug like me — half frozen, wearing orange-red. Will it be here tomorrow?
Journal, January 6, 1959
Yes, it’s here. I tried a crumb of milk chocolate on it, but it wasn’t interested. I wonder if it’s seeking the cold and doesn’t enjoy the sun, knowing it’s winter.
Journal, January 7, 1959
So far I’d say returning has been a mistake. Keep coming back to Don. What’s wrong? I ask myself, and topping the list is that … Ladybug still around.
Journal, January 8, 1959
No work yet. Am hoping to start pretty soon now. Always hard to begin again, and this is as hard as any time I can remember in the past. About all this — house, staying on, etc. — I feel no better. Discovered girls have been wearing no sweaters under their coats — just their blouses. Mary home sick today. Suppose KA will be next. I don’t know — at this point, with the weather near zero every morning — what it means. Nothing in my history enables me to understand them at their ages — or Betty, for that matter. A strong strain always tending toward absolute confusion. Haven’t seen the ladybug around today.
Journal, January 9, 1959
Trying to get started — still. No sign of ladybug, but haven’t really looked for it.
Journal, January 12, 1959
The family-life novel seems more and more possible. (Perhaps the account of our arrival off the Hanseatic cd be in it, for I now see the novel not ending with our departure from St Cloud.)
Journal, January 14, 1959
I drove out to Jacobs Prairie — looked for Don’s grave. I think I found it in a corner. Very odd standing there where he is buried — hard to believe — and I’m afraid I’m such a poor Christian that I get mad at him for dying.
HARVEY EGAN
February 11, 1959
Dear Fr Egan,
[…] We haven’t found the social life here quite what we’d hoped it would be. I finally got Doyle to come out last night, having spent one night at his house watching the children go to bed for three hours; they kept reappearing to have a dish of cereal and to pat the cat. The Doyles are considered strict disciplinarians by most people, I understand.
I have my Dublin office furniture here now, but the work, I must say, isn’t getting done. It is now 10:00 a.m., and I’ve been here about two hours and am beginning to think about opening up my sandwiches and thermos of tea. The Mpls Tribune is out of the way for another day.
I got pretty interested in the Del-Dupas1 contest, reading up on it before and after. Watching it on TV, though, I got that old feeling. I don’t think I gave Del a round. Just shows you how much you can miss watching a show on TV. I thought I heard your voice ring out at one point.
In short, I am trying to take an interest in the life around me. Not easy, is it?
Del drank too much water before the fight. He wants title shot. If ever a guy deserved it, Del does. Maybe with the International Boxing Club dissolved, he’ll get it. Well, let’s hope so. But if so, I hope he remembers to train for it, and doesn’t get too fine, and doesn’t drink water to excess when he’s drying out, and all the rest.
Jim
Jim whose address is:
c/o A. Wahl
North River Road, Rte 2
St Cloud
Journal, February 21, 1959
I was asking what it is my present life seems to be saying to me — I think it is that I must work willy-nilly and abandon all hope of living as I’d like to, forget what I like to eat, who I’d like to see, where I’d like to be, etc., and think of myself as just having been given a stiff prison sentence: if I should ever get out, it would be nice to have a book or two to show for the time. I’ll not get out either until I have a book that makes me some money. So what, my life is a plot against living, but perhaps a good thing for my work — if I can ever get around to it. If I can stop trying to think of other ways to escape the trap I’m in. Stoicism then …
HARVEY EGAN
March 6, 1959
Dear Fr Egan,
I just rec’d the following wire here at my office: THE TROUBLE2 SHOWING CBS LOOK UP AND LIVE SUNDAY MORNING MARCH EIGHTH MANY THANKS AND CONGRATULATIONS = ANNE FREMANTLE. So I wanted you to be the first to know. The only thing is that CBS in Mpls — St Paul isn’t carrying the program. […] They are on tape, so maybe we’ll see them someday somewhere. Naturally, I am excited about my debut on TV, though there’s no money in it and it’s, unfortunately, invisible.
How they going?
I hear conflicting reports. That Del will meet Martinez on St Patrick’s Day, and since Vince is so heavy, Del will not have to train down (and so, it follows, will not have to drink so much water); but this morning Sid Hartman, that ace reporter, reports Del and Vince will never meet because Del isn’t ready.3
Joe Dever writes that Hollywood is nibbling on his last. Some talk of Crosby, Sinatra, and Dean Martin (now crooner, late of Martin and Lewis) all wanting priest parts. How about you?
Jim
Journal, March 24, 1959
Opened the window for a little air — and a few minutes later I saw the ladybug going up the windowpane. Hello again.
Art and Money returned from Florida at the end of March. Although they never complained or showed resentment about sharing their house with seven Powerses, the couple did not understand Jim and Betty’s insistence that they would not even consider a rambler, most especially one in a new development. Jim found the living situation at the Wahls’ increasingly intolerable. He accepted an invitation to a writers’ conference at Grinnell College in Iowa and planned to stay briefly with Egan on the way there or back.
HARVEY EGAN
North River Road
April 1 (ha ha), 1959
Dear Fr Egan,
Yours rec’d and glad that you were able to shuffle the cards so as to make space for me on your tight schedule. I sometimes wonder if Pope John knows what our American pastors are going through (and I’d be interested in his reaction). If I am ever to receive recognition at the Vatican, now is the time. Well, no, I didn’t realize that Fr Bandas was succeeding to Msgr Knox’s seat at the Round Table.4 Do these things just happen, or is this the divine humor? […]
Betty exclaimed during the course of changing diapers, getting milk for the baby, trying to quiet boys, etc.: “Suicide would be better than this. No, I shouldn’t say that.” But I’m afraid that’s about it. How’s it with youse?
Jim
ROBERT LOWELL AND ELIZABETH HARDWICK
c/o A. Wahl
North River Road
St Cloud, Minnesota
April 13, 1959
Dear Cal and Elizabeth,