Novel Treatments / Chapter 16 Summer Moves On (Analysis)

Chapter 16 Summer grinds on

Oh, I guess I should mention one last exchange of letters about Donna dating. I replied to her letter telling me she had stopped It was a fairly long letter and I’m only going to quote a little of it. I wrote: “I had several chances to go out, four girls asked me to parties and twice friends wanted me to go out with their girl’s friend. I said no every time, nor have I asked any girls out one my own. (Nor will I date at all) I love you and I don’t want to date or kiss anyone but you. I DON”T see why you had to keep on dating even tho you didn’t want to. (No sarcasm meant.) I’m afraid to be alone too (very much) but I am not ever alone knowing that you love and need me as much as I love and need you.”

Well, you get the idea. But can you see what I did wrong? (Aside from sounding quite pompous.) I missed it completely. Donna needed and depended on a strong support system. At school that was me, and everything was all right. At home it was her parents and her friends. She is strong, but still I never considered the implication of what she had said in her letter, “I’ve learned that my love for you is stronger than anything else I have ever come against.” In the future there were other things she would still “come against,” things stronger than any she had faced before. But that is a story still to be told.

For now, things were calm. Please don’t think we spent all summer exchanging serious letters. Most of our letters were more the traditional love letters. She wrote about what she was doing on a daily basis. Where she went with Martha, how she was trying to give up smoking, about getting poison ivy on her neck, about how her father was unhappy with his job and too often took it out on Donna and her mother by being obstinate and contrary. She often wrote about what I’d written too.

I was trying to get enough money to come to Tulsa to see her. I worked as a roofer and I hated the job. Still, if I didn’t work I couldn’t get to her so I worked, and I grumbled. I also wrote about playing golf and about baseball and sometimes about my family and what we were doing. Mostly rather mundane stuff. Oh, and my parents had made me take spelling lessons during the summer. The improvement in my spelling is obvious over the course of the summer. Donna attended summer school too, taking courses in speech and English Lit.

Mostly our letters were love letters, chatty but at times mushy. A typical example from one of my letters “Is there something wrong with me? Every time I start to think about anything I always think of something that reminds me of you and Bingo, for the next 15 minutes I’m on cloud nine. Then I come back to earth and five minutes later Wham, I’m off again. 24 hours a day this goes on. I love it.” I could quote similar things from most any of the letters during July, from either of us.

I had finally made enough money to get to Tulsa. It would be in early August and we both wrote about that a lot.

Donna was having some problems because of whatever she had done to break up with Lee. She wrote that none of the boys in the bridge group she played with would talk to her. She did play bridge with the girls in the group. She also wrote briefly about Jon, anther old boy friend, who was going to Germany where, she hoped, he would learn to grow up. She said if she ever wrote her book this would be an important part of the plot.

One of my letters (July 10th) mentions that she will be spending Thanksgiving in Ohio with me. One of hers (July 12th) makes fun of my still taking spelling “lesions” which, she tells me is how I spelled it.

We both were counting the days until I could get to Tulsa and our letters showed we were really anticipating being together. I was planning on coming on August 4th and staying until the 7th. From our letters we both could hardly wait. And the waiting got harder as the time neared. I made the plane reservation, and she had called the airport the day before to find out which flight got to Tulsa the earliest, knowing that would be the one I’d pick. She was right.

Mostly the July letters show two people very much in love, and falling more in love all the time.

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Somewhat to my Surprise, I enjoyed the rest of the summer. I wish I could remember what I’d done to make all the boys mad at me. I had a couple close girlfriends and we spent a lot of time together.

One thing Joe doesn’t know about I guess I’ll mention. While I was dating Lee and Tom my friend Marsha asked me if I would mind going out with a friend of Joel’s (her boyfriend). He was coming to see her in mid July, and his friend would be with him. I said I would, and I did. The guys were in Tulsa for four days and the four of us spent most of that time together. The last two evenings Marsha and Joel wanted to go someplace alone, so Vic (the friend’s name) and I went out by ourselves. I’ll admit we kissed goodnight (for about ten minutes) the second night. When they left he took my address and gave me his. He wrote a couple of times but I never replied. I never saw him again. Ships in the night. I never told Joe because it didn’t mean anything to me and I knew it would have upset him.

I think someplace in that last paragraph is a basic difference between me and Joe. I loved Joe and going out with other guys didn’t have any effect on that love. I just liked to go out, so Vic, or Lee, or any other guy, was no more than a way to enjoy an evening. I know Joe does not think that way. He sees going out as some kind of commitment, if that is the right word. I am sure that is why he had trouble breaking up with Ruth. (and why I had very little trouble breaking up with Jack)

Joe did mention his spelling. Someplace he read a quote of Mark Twain’s “I have little respect for a man who can’t think of more than one way to spell a word,” Joe lived by that quote. He could, and sometimes he did, spell the same word three different ways in the same letter.

I’ll end with agreeing that our letters in July showed two people in love. We both could hardly wait until Joe came to Tulsa in early August.

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Reviews

July 15, 2009

MisterP

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
159	69.0% (100 votes)	33.6%

REVIEW QUALITY: 100.0%(1 vote ) personal info reviewer stats

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47	M	United Kingdom	November 18

MisterP reviewed Version 2 - Read 100% of the Item

‘had stopped It was’ – missing a full stop
‘I DON”T see’ – I’m not sure emphasising don’t is necessary.

I will admit not having read any previous chapters so I will comment on what is written here.
The style is fluid and engaging with the reader as one half of the conversation, though I would have liked more ‘real’ dialogue between your characters if only to add breaks into the greater conversation.
But then I have come in at an advanced stage in the story.

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July 14, 2009

FrakKevin

No. of Reviews	Overall Quality	Comment Followup
1489	74.0% (577 votes)	33.0%

REVIEW QUALITY: 100.0%(1 vote ) personal info reviewer stats

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20	M	Charleston, SC	November 22

FrakKevin reviewed Version 1 - Read 100% of the Item

his fiend- friends

Donna must be the hottest woman in the world…she’s always involved with somebody. It’s rare when the guy is portrayed as the loyal one. Joe just came off as frustrated in this chapter…they both did. Like the time apart and build up to him coming to see her was driving them both love crazy over the summer.