Your Mother
Somewhere, Arkansas

Hill Country College
      123 Fourth Street
      Backward, Tennessee

Dear Son,

I am writing this real slow cause I know that you can not read very fast.  We do not live where we did when you left.  Your daddy read in the paper that most accidents happen within twenty miles of home, so we moved.  I will not be able to send you the address because the last family that lived here took the house numbers with them so they did not have to change their address.

This place has a slow washing machine.  The first day we got here I put four shirts in, pulled the chain, and have not seen them since.  It only rained twice this week.  Three days the first time and four days the second time.  You know the coat you wanted me to send you?  We bought it at a sale that said, "Stock up and save (limit one)."  Well, Aunt Sue said it would be too heavy to send in the mail with those heavy buttons on it, so we cut them off and put them in the pockets.

We got a letter from the funeral home.  They said if we don’t make the last payment on Grandma’s funeral bill, up she comes.  Your sister had a baby this morning.  I haven’t heard whether it’s a boy or a girl, so I don’t know if you are an Uncle or an Aunt.  Your Uncle John fell in the whiskey vat.  Some men tried to pull him out, but he fought them off and drowned.   We cremated him and he burned for three days.  We recall how he could not read or write, so we sent him lots of cards and letters so he could just answer them.

Three of your friends went off the bridge in a pickup truck.  One was driving, the other two were in the back.  The driver got out.  He rolled the window down and swam to safety.  The other two drowned.  They could not get the tailgate down.  There is not much news this time, nothing much has happened.

Love, MOM