All of this is justified, so read it as soon as circumstances permit. Scanning it to begin with will reveal the topics – October 29, 1964
Dear Patricia:
As usual, I much enjoyed the pleasure of your companionship at dinner at Paolo’s last evening. The steak wasn’t up to standard and I’ve a mind to tell the management and why – at least if I’m tempted to order a steak there again. The filet mignon doubtless would have been better and if it had so high a percentage of fat as our New York (?) cuts (they didn’t seem good enough to be New York cuts) we’d have needed their supposed 16 oz to get the right amount of meat. A good prime rib roast would doubtless have been much better than our New York cuts.
The reason I asked if you would wear your hair down and wear the dangle earrings next week (Friday Oct.6) , When we go to my niece and nephews, is simply that I think you are your loveliest that way. On the other hand, if you want to appear more nearly your age by putting your hair up, it will be fine with me. In any case Barbara and Woodrow Williams will not have hand a more delightful guest at any time.
I think you’ll find them quite acceptable company, though a bit more formal than some you know, as both were raised more formally. They have been mellowing a good deal since they were married, in spite of their responsibilities with two children and a third on the way. Whether they’ll even become as casual as you (and I) are (am) accustomed to being, remains to be seen but lots of good people never attain that state. It calls for a measure of independence in thinking that most do not attain and also a somewhat broader sense of humor.
[page 2] Incidentally, recalling your need occasionally for an ID card brings to mind the fact that [?] told me today of a solution to the problem. He didn’t know he was doing so as he was talking about himself. Your weren’t mentioned, and it would have been impertinent on my part had I done so. I encountered him sitting on a bench looking over an examination folder he had gotten for an exam in cultural anthropology course – in which he has a test tomorrow. I decided to talk with him a few minutes for this is what he and the Guinea boys want in order to gain proficiency in English. I told him I’d bring the big atlas (that I loaned you) for our next conference this coming Tuesday AM so he could tell me more – in a meaningful way – about life in Upper Volta. He mentioned the scars on his face again and said that during the years of the French protectorate (close of World War I to 1960 when Upper Volta got its freedom) the tribal marks (scars) on the upper Voltans served as their ID cards. Whenever one of them were in the country, there was no mistaking his tribe for he always had his ID card on his face. Being muslims they had no problem of buying cocktails; but it was important to know their tribe and that, they couldn’t conceal. The practice of scarring the faces is beginning to lose out but he said it still is being followed largely because of the weight of tradition.
I’ve tried since to conjure up in my mind a scar pattern that would serve your ID card needs but I seem to be short on imagination. If you want that kind of an ID testimonial, perhaps you’ll have to figure it out yourself. Personally, I like you the way you are and wouldn’t have you changed for the world!
[page 3] I’ve been thinking a lot about your idea of applying for status as a Playboy Bunny and somehow there should be a better way to accomplish your goal. I know that it is the salary (and tips no doubt) that you are toying with, but I can’t escape the feeling that if you are to accomplish anything in the dramatic world, being a Playboy Bunny would lessen your opportunities. I keep thinking of my brother, Ted, the music arranger turned inventor who also gave a lot of thought to ways of earning a lot of money as quickly as possible. He too couldn’t escape the realization of the imposition of poverty which has been to much your mother’s lot in recent years – and which has worried you a good deal. Ted tried several things he thought might be short cuts to wealth or at least financial ease that would make it possible for him then to devote himself to his beloved music. He (with a friend) tried general contracting which, in the late twenties and thirties called only for imagination, and nerve, with both of which he was liberally supplied. However, jobs – contracts – didn’t come as easily as he had hoped so his bank roll didn’t grow very rapidly. Then he transferred from SJ State to Stanford and began a career in law, he was sharp enough but the things a lawyer has to do bothered his conscience and cramped his style as an independent thinker. He’d have had to regiment himself unless he was willing to become an unscrupulous lawyer and he couldn’t stomach that.
Then, he decided to put all his efforts into building a superior [page 4] dance band. He was an excellent performer on the saxophone and clarinet and he played a variety of other instruments. He was immediately successful and soon had a notable dance band with all the work they could do. His banjo player has since become one of the peninsula’s expert nose and throat physicians. Another band member ultimately became the principle and controlling owner of the Pet Milk Co. and a millionaire. Ted, however, wanted to study harmony and musical composition and music arranging and this was difficult for a dance band leader, even if he did take trips around the world.
Eventually, ted concluded what some of his friends had known all along that since his talent lay in serious music – the mastery of musical composition and structure, muscal theory and style, harmony, etc -- that the shortest route to success lay in giving his music all he had. So he came back and in several institutions studied the musical fields in which he was interested and in a few years was known as one of the outstanding musical specialists in the west. He rose rapidly and so did his earnings. NBC in San Francisco, then Horace Heidt, then NBC again in Chicago, New York and Los Angeles in that sequence and finally MGM for whom he arranged most of the music for Esther Williams outstanding movies, also Bing Crosby, John Scott Trotter’s Orchestra and many more. Only his deafness that developed in the late forties put an end to his rise. I’m sure he’d say “Don’t waste time in attempted short cuts. Put your effort where your talents lie. The results will follow”.
As a Playboy Bunny you’d without doubt be a complete success. [page 5] However, your personal appeal to men is so great that, in spite of all the protection that the Playboy restaurants or clubs can give you – and I’m sure that they do as much as they can for their “Bunnies” – I’m positive that you’d be hounded by a continual stream of Tom Kelly types (moneyed ones, of course) who’d subject you to every kind of pressure they know to get you to compromise your principles, your standards of behavior and your ambitions for intellectual development. To the extent that you succumbed to to blandishments (at a price – they’d spend money on you and then let you know that they considered, therefore, that they’d bought and were entitled to your submission) you’d be dragged or driven farther and farther from your dramatic goals where your talent lies until after a few years, your chances of even getting into the fields you love would largely evaporate. I’m talking only in terms of what I know from observation of what I’ve been able to hear firsthand of what the moneyed type of Playboys expect and how little generally they care for the consequences in the lives of those (the girls) to whom they look for satisfaction of their pleasures. Then, too, I’m sure your success would be obvious enough to inspire the jealousy of other “Bunnies” who would not have the dramatic talents you possess.
I’m seriously concerned “my darling daughter” that initial success in any direction you turn might lead you to think you could handle any type of situation that might develop – but from the “rats” I’ve known with money and polished manners, but without scruples, [page 6] I’m sure could not bring it to pass. At 24 opportunity beckons to you. At 30, probably tired by the pace you could not avoid, opportunity would be waving you goodbye. In your field of talent, success can come to you, though with a somewhat lower paycheck by the you’d be thiking of turning away from the Playboy atmosphere. And the rewards in satisfactions – in every area of your interest would be a hundredfold greater.
Incidentally, your idea of an epic poem on insects for your second term paper intrigued me so much that last night I wrote as fast as I could drive my pencil the outlines of one there. For such an epic, one that has never been done but for which the time surely is ripe. If it appeals to you and I’ve had it typed today and will give you a copy tomorrow (Friday) at class, and with a list of insects from which to choose a “dramatis personae” you could, I’m sure, do a worthwhile term paper. Later, on a more ambitions lead, if you would consider collaboration with mine yon to furnish the imagination, drawn and poetic insight, to supply the factual data and the continuity, the “epic” might well meet with favor in the hands of a publisher. It would take the two of us for I don’t believe either of us could provide the entire spectrum of requirements. Anyway, I can tell you more about the theatre, you can do a perm paper any case, and we can talk about a publishable sequel.
I spoke to Dr. Richter, our veterinary professor, about altering the kittens (Twischen or Fwischen – now is positively beautiful) and he can arrange to do it next Thursday. I’ll see you Mon. for arrangements. Now I must quit or you’ll balk at reading any thing more that I write. Love Carl.
Dr. Carl Duncan and Patricia Whiting Collection (SJSU)
