Joe: January 27, 1943

I’m closing my ears and getting back to a most important subject--correction; to me the most important subject--you, Mary dearest. I’m still puzzled by the outcome of a decision to go to McAveighs instead of Loon Lake Colony because the latter place seemed to be a little too sophisticated for a simple minded guy like Joe Koch. I just remembered the connotation attached to simple minded--but just one moron joke mary. I’ve gone along for a good many years carefree, rather self-complacent and then--I remember seven days at McAveighs, a bus ride from Albany to New York, Bambi, a Brooklyn-Philly game, some shows, a few movies, a couple of football games featuring Fordham--luck Fordham-- a ballet, a rodeo--what I’m trying to say is that I remember only Mary, Mary dear, dearest Mary, lovely blue-eyed Mary, mary pretending to be asleep on the red bus, Mary so alive, Mary bowling, Mary and her Hobokens, talkative Mary, the Mary who says she is silent and subdued, the Mary who says she isn’t naive just because she has principles, the Mary who puts stamps upside down on letters to new Mexico, Mary the student, Mary the only girl--just Mary.Then I count on my fingers that it’s just for five months that I’ve known her--and for two of those months I haven’t seen her--It upsets all my theories and a theoritician who finds his theories upset is a dangerous man, darling Mary. He finds his fountain pen to no avail, so he’s thinking of and loving you, Mary dear, across 2500 miles and hoping that Queens Village is tuned in by telepathy. With all my love, Mary, love that must be real because it is so incoherent, I love you, Mary, and will always and always.