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| Ollalieberries were pretty much picked out by now, Blackberries and bayberries were still hanging out on the vines |
Slowly I laid the old piece of paper down on top of my desk, and re-examined the envelope I’d found in the old book. I still knew Lizzie’s writing, even after all these years. And she was right when she said I’d remember that typing project. Of course I’d have recognized her handwriting anywhere.
Even after all these years. I still remembered her modern take on a copperplate hand. That paper had been twenty pages long and I’d struggled mightily to read her funny ‘f’s and ‘p’, bfore I keyed them into the file. It had been terribly important to Lizzie that that particular piece of writing be captured in digital format.
When we first became roommates, back in our freshman year, I’d explained to her that the new word processor technology allowed text to be changed and re-printed, without having to be entirely re-typed, and she’d remembered. That was back before computers got personal and we still did a lot of our programming on card decks. When Lizzie had first begun working on her senior project about Elizabeth Snowden, she told me that it was terribly important that this paper, of all papers, be kept in this form.
It was several years before personal computers had emerged on the market, and the only people at the university who had access to word processor technology were Computer Science majors. Lizzie and I were absolute soul mates, closer than sisters, she always said. So I had typed the paper learning all about the life of Civil War spy Elizabeth Snowden’s contribution to the Northern Cause in the process. Lizzie had turned up some old volumes in the university archives that no historians seemed to have stumbled on. She thought it was probably because they’d been buried deep underneath a pile of Confederate bills that someone had donated, that no one had unearthed them before. I guess Confederate money is a glut on the historical donation market.
From her reading, my roommate painted the picture of a glamorous woman who, she argued, had made it possible for the devastating American war to end sooner than it otherwise might.
to be continued.....
Dear Diana,
I found a patch of wild blackberries just up the road this morning and picked three baskets full to make into jam. They're the last I’ll find this year. The raccoons have been making regular inroads on the vines I planted when I moved in, but they’d missed these. It might be because the dogs like to ramble up that way at night. Though, in truth, the raccoons around here don’t seem to have any fear of my hounds. More likely, it’s because they were half hidden under a grassy bank.
I’ve always been a little suspicious when berry picking because of that time you and I stopped and picked olallieberries on the coast, and saw the snake. I swore it was a rattler and you thought otherwise. We don’t have olallieberries around her, not yet any way.
Remember how we made berry cobbler that afternoon? Everybody in the house, and all their friends came over? Elliot played “Cripple Creek” on his banjo and I knew all the lyrics. Was that boy cute or what? All that Dixieland talk and the charm to go with it. Then you mixed in modern attitudes towards the environment and ethnic diversity and he was it! It seemed like there was a different girl coming over to see him every week. If I’d been any more interested in blond, southern manhood than I am now, that is to say not at all, I’d have fallen for him myself. But I do sometimes admit to wondering if he ever got married!
I was up to my elbows in berries and sugar this afternoon, remembering that day. Sugar’s been hard to get since the war began, but a military gentleman owed me a favor, and I got him to pay up in sugar. Our boys in blue, particularly those of his rank, seem to be able to get whatever they want. It’ll sure be nice to have those jars put up this winter.
I suppose you’ll be surprised to see this letter. It’s been a few years, one way or another since we saw each other, hasn’t it? You’ve been on my mind a good bit, and I’ve been meaning to get in touch. There’s a lot to tell, and it’s hard to know exactly where to start. I suppose I ought to begin by telling you that that paper you typed up for me in that class I took that last winter quarter, “A Study in Original Source”, has really come in useful in my, well I guess you’d just have to call it my new life.
Click on the picture above for more arty details
Please CLICK ON MY CREATION to see all the lovely detail.
I was thinking about Alice in Wonderland when I drew this - though I haven't seen the new movie. We do have lots of blackberries nearby but doormice? No, I think they are just European.
Why are doormice so much more attractive than rats? We HAVE rats. Right now we have a tribe of them living off of the compost bins. My husband braves them when he takes the bowl out. I just drop the scraps into the bin for 'landscaping only' debris. A carrot top is landscaping, after all. I'm not silly enough to put a chicken bone in with vegetable bits. I'm pretty sure that's why they mark them like that.
