Like Chronicle #58, the letter below is to addressed my wife's grandmother who lived in Joplin, Missouri. Though I didn't slather on the Tom Sawyer persona quite as thick in this one, it is still annoyingly present. What is worthwhile about the communique is its fairly disinterested description of my first career-track position, an entry-level position at the pseudo-prestigious Foundation Center.
The Foundation Center was a truly miserable place. Nothing in my six years at the university prepared me for the horror -- the pettiness, the hatred and bitterness -- of everyday workaday life in an office. Imagine Hitchcock's Lifeboat (1944) and you get the idea of what I felt about the place. But none of that makes it into the letter to the grand dame. I obviously tried hard to keep an "Aw, shucks!" upbeat tone, right down to playing up the generosity of the poverty wages I earned.
Autumn 1988
Dear Esther,
I want to thank you for the nice letter you sent us. It arrived on election day as we marched off to vote. Thank you for the entertainment funds. They'll come in handy. Ashley has harvested a bushel of friends, quite nice people, in fact, and there always seems to be something astir on the weekends.
So how is life around Joplin these days? For my part, New York is always getting a little more like home. I've already developed a routine. Up at a quarter to seven, make my lunch, and out the door by a quarter to eight. I hit the subway and ride 150 blocks downtown. I arrive at work by 8:30 AM. Work is fine. I'm what they call an assistant editor at a place called the Foundation Center, which is a foundation set up by a lot of other foundations, like Ford and McCarthy and Mobil, to record and monitor how much money they donate and what kind of programs they fund. I work with IRS tax forms and computers, and I do a bit of proofreading. The office is on Fifth Avenue, but it's too far downtown, 15th Street, to be part of Midtown's glitz and luxury.
Manhattan is a big place, even though it really is small; it is only about fifteen miles long, and, at its fattest, five-miles wide (probably less total area than Ashland). I like it fine though, and I particularly like our neck of the woods, Washington Heights. It's almost all Hispanic, except for the hospital, medical and nursing Schools, psychiatric and neurological institutes. And even though there are a lot of drug dealers and nobody speaks English and a cop recently got killed up here, it has a peace and vitality and homeyness that is preferable to the "nicer" parts of the city.
The one big drawback about living in New York City is how expensive it is; but even in this, Ashley and I are doing okay. I bring home a pretty good entry-level salary, enough to keep food coming in and rent paid, and with what Ashley gets, we can pay the bills and live lean but with comfort.
I've got to thank you again for what you did for us this summer. You really did help us out. We had been on the road a long time and with a big load. Then we pulled into your driveway. You fed us, great coffeecake and eggs and bacon, and we got a good night's sleep, and everything was great. I'll never forget it.
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