Jan. 7, 1965
11:25 P.M.
Dearest Patricia:
I’m disturbed and lonesome and mixed up tonight, so I’ve got to write you. I phoned earlier & got a strange, almost mono-syllabic response from Sylvia who said you had gone out – she didn’t know where, so I asked her to leave you a note to call me when you come in – no matter what time it might be.
But knowing how considerate you are of me and how might fell if it were real late that you shouldn’t disturb me – I’m writing to you anyway, even if I have the chance to say the same things to you a little later, if you do call me, as I hope you will.
I called your mom earlier in the evening and talked with her a long time about a good many things – She’s one of the easiest persons I know to talk with and I think we could go on at times for hours – all of which makes me feel good & relaxed more or less. I told her what I feel very sincerely – that I’d like to feel like one of her family & would certainly do so if the thought was agreeable [page 2] to her. This seemed to please her so now I have the feeling that I can visit most any day (not too often of course) & take an assortment of vegetables, fruits, etc. as I’d like to do. Of course I’ve been doing this but there’s never been any formal understanding about it and I wanted to make sure I wasn’t just inserting (strange usage ?) myself into the family without really being welcomed. I think she was pleased – at any rate I think in a very real sense I am one of the family now. However, I learned incidentally that you had got your paper back on the European Civ. class today and the result wasn’t good & so, you were pretty much disturbed & shaken by it. So this put me on pins & needles because anything that hurts you, hurts me – truly & deeply.
Please, darling, when anything like this happens, or anything else that is in the nature of misfortune, let me share it & help in what way I can, feeble or otherwise to ease or improve the situation. This, I beg of you. I wish for [page 3] nothing so much as to help comfort you & to help you over the rough spots – whatever they may be. – as a father ought to be able to do for a daughter – or as I feel I ought to be able to do for you regardless, simply because I love you so deeply.
You told me once that when you first got acquainted with Al, that you just poured out your heart to him and it helped a great deal. Please let me be one to whom you just let down & open up & pour out your feelings. It will help you gain strength and it will make me very happy to be able to do something for you. I’ll cancel any arrangements I have outside of my classes, which I can’t cancel – as you understand. – But nothing else that I do & no other obligations I have are one tenth as important to me as you are. Come to or phone me at the office or anywhere I might be & I’ll drop whatever I’m doing & meet you anywhere you say whenever you say. We can get in my [page 4] car & take a ride for an hour or two or as long as you want & wherever you’d like and you can just lay your head on my shoulder & spill anything in your heart that’s troubling you. It will not cure everything but it will go a long way to help. I’m sure that scholastically you are just suffering from psychological blocks that go back a long way into the past – and sooner or later if you will just let me we can unearth the origin of the blocks and then they will just disappear. I’ve had one such experience – or rather several and I know this can happen. Each time it does the world just opens wider for you and becomes more beautiful. So please, please take me all the way into your heart & let me help! I’ll be all trembling & uncertain inside until I can see you tomorrow & know that, within limits, at least, you are all right. Maybe you’ve phoned Al & he is helping you tonight. This I fervently hope, - or else I hope that you are using your [page 5] tremendous personal strength to stoically hang on till you decide what to do. The end of the semester is still some distance away and I suspect that all is not yet lost though your prospects may look pretty grim. But don’t do anything rash & do put some real trust in me.
My impression of your mind improves with every paper I get from you, as you can judge from the last two. If you’d rather not have them handed back to you in class, I can give them to you outside of class. From what you’ve told me I know some of the lazy bouts in class are trying to parasitize you because (probably), they’ve seen the scores on a couple of your papers – and I’ll do anything I can to help protect you from that. You are too good to people who try to take advantage of you. I’d like to see you find a way to curtly cut off & turn away any & all who have no real reason to take your time & whom you do not yourself want to come see you. Certainly you are under no obligation [page 6] whatever to turn over anything at all of your work – not even a paragraph or a word or two to anyone who doesn’t deserve it and who doesn’t fully respect it.
One thing I wanted to tell you when I called was that I paid a deposit today on an apartment – only instead of the 1st one on the left (No 7) as I thought, it is the one directly opposite across the driveway (No 16). With it goes car port & locker No 16. Also I may be able to get into it a few days before February 1. The boy who has it now plans to vacate – so thinks the landlady, Mrs. Marshall – as soon as his finals are over. Soon as she knows she will phone me at the college so I can begin to move in. I’ll not get occupancy till she has satisfied herself that she has the place clean enough to suit her – and that may take a couple of days.
When I left Original Joe’s after dinner tonight – since I hadn’t seen you or been able to contact you during the day – (No doubt if I’d phoned early enough or at [page 7]the right time this P.M. I’d have been able to) I had a truly lonesome, homesick feeling. Then as I returned to my room, I almost choked up inside as I suddenly realized & the words came out – “but I’ll see her tomorrow, at class!” So don’t disappoint me and let’s be sure to set up some sort of schedule that will enable you to share a little more of your life with me regularly – so that I can be of more help. I feel more or less helpless now, mostly because I feel so uncertain about making demands on your time, - but if you’ll give the permission or lay down the conditions, I’ll know better where I stand. Of course if I were 20 or 30 years younger, this wouldn’t be a problem.
At times I wish desperately that human beings could live with enough trust & confidence that I could maintain an apartment for you as any father could do for a daughter but I know too well that couldn’t be done. Perhaps, though, once I get into my apartment [page 8] & you could really cook & share a meal with me occasionally, we could come a little closer together. After the experience with Louise DeSoto, though & seeing what jealousy can do I know there isn’t a prayer of a chance of doing anything more. I’ll never forgive Louise for what she did – as I believe she knows – as if it weren’t for the shock my withdrawal would mark in the kids – I’d not go back at all any time. If it’s important enough o you – and you say the word. I’ll make it plainer than ever to Louise that the only reason I’m still calling occasionally is Sylvia & Sydney. They are two sweet kids who have a pretty hard time every once in awhile understanding what they must do to be “good” in their mother’s eyes.
Well darling, I’ll keep my ear cocked for the telephone & hope you do call. – I don’t care when. Otherwise I’ll try to contact you by phone in the morning before you go to school and I’ll “look” hard fro you wherever I go till I see you again.
With all my love
Carl
Dr. Carl Duncan and Patricia Whiting Collection (SJSU)
