Modern American Memoirs by Annie Dillard Page A

to it, Pat I told you a Child is word a Berl of Gold….”
    He had a job though: “demonstrating and selling Pomosin, a New Product from Germany.” He had also traded his car for an old Buick—“a Buirich Carre”—and was about to set out in it on a selling trip with his son Niels.
    â€œNot working, do you know I am lost, and now all the Insurance People down here comes to see me, they all thinks I am full of mony or something, I say full of Balony, but now I will try this job first, I may land on the poor House but then I wont be the first, nor the last.”
    Two weeks later:
    â€œDear Elizabeth, Monday morning Niels, my Son and I started out selling Flavors and Speices, we made during the week 37 dollars, but we spent 34 dollars you know what I mean, Hotels and Meals, so I wouldent say it was so good…. The worst truble is this Bakers think I am going cracy, coming down selling Speices, this morning in Pittsburgh a Baker we called on there, said when he seing me, say what is this World coming to, now Oluf comes and wont to sell Speices, I felt so bad about it, so I said to Niels come on lett us go Home….”
    July 9, 1932:
    â€œDear Elizabeth, I got Home last Night late, and I sendt in my Resignation. That job was no good, by selling that Stuf I would have spoiled my Name amongst the Bakers….”
    They had not seen each other for three months.
    â€œYes I would have liked to see you now but I will later on, and then you and I will make up for all lost time, then I will be kissing you till you tell me, oh Oluf you are good will you do that? you better say yes, because I am almost sjure of it…tell me in your letters all the news, I like to hear it from you, oh all the Taxces and Bills I got to paid and have no Mony, but then I don’t worrie, love to you and the Children from Oluf.”
    He was having trouble now meeting the mortgage payments on the houses he had bought, and he hoped to solve the problem by selling one. It was August, nearly five months since they had last seen each other. The long stretch of joblessness had started him reflecting philosophically about friendship.
    August 11, 1932:
    â€œDear Elizabeth, Thanks very much for your letter I received today, yes I wich I was down near you, and we would go out for a ride, I am sjure it would make you cool, here it is wery neice Weather, and cool at Night, oh how I sleep when I am here at my Home, you know it is so quiet, compared with when I use to be in the Citys all noise, and so worm, I don’t hear from anybody but you, how funy People are, only when they thinks they can get something out of a Person then they are, or I mean they let on to they are Freinds, but they soon change, you remember some days I received up to twenty letters, and now, not any, only you stick to me, you are a good Girl….
    â€œI begin to think I was going to sell a House this morning, but the Party diddent have any mony, now I have three Houses empty, nothing coming in, and Taxes to be paid, well it will come out OK, I hope so, I always tell People not to worrie, so I won’t eather, now good Night with love to you and the Children from Oluf.”
    Well it will all come out OK, I hope so.
    With the country reaching the modern equivalent of the Dark Ages, “Well it will all come out OK, I hope so” was a declaration of boundless optimism. It was a season of bread lines, soup kitchens,hobo jungles, bandits riding the highways. Suicide was epidemic among men who felt their manhood lost because they could no longer support their families. Unemployment stood at 25 percent of the work force. There were 85,000 businesses bankrupt, 5,000 bank failures, 275,000 families evicted from their homes.
    President Hoover’s campaign slogan—“Prosperity is just around the corner”—had become a sardonic national joke. Even among people like Oluf who wanted to believe it, enthusiasm was muted down