Excerpt
Student ills / Night wedding / Sunset over Utah
Jul. 25, 1981 82
Dear Parents,
I have been much occupied this summer, what with house, car, school and job. Although I am only taking one course this semester, I have been kept busy on weekends, studying and going to the library. Being a student hasnt changed a lot over time; it seems as though Im doing the same things that I did 15, 20, or even 25 years ago. I must have forgotten about the occasional sleepless nights and worries about whether I would finish this or that assignment, etc., that go with being a student. Nevertheless, I feel somewhat more worthwhile as a person for going through it all again. When I hand in a paper or at the end of a test, I feel great relief; everything becomes briefly enjoyable again. Simple pleasures like watching TV or going for walks (activities that had to be foregone in the interests of studying) can be enjoyed once more. Maybe there is something to self-denial, although I was never able to practice it for long.
I hope you are enjoying your new abode. I think I told you about going to the wedding of Teds older daughter, Amanda, when I visited you in May. It was a bit unusual, being at nightand a warm one at that. Looking like a Dutch princess in her white gown and pointed lace cap perched on a mass of brown curls, she made a fetching entrance into the darkened church, illuminated at that moment only by candles at the windows and altar. Burt and I traveled over together for the ceremony and reception [in Herndon, VA] but stayed only a short time at the latter. Food was abundant and the guest list long. A band played in one corner, where a few people were dancing. It was a proud occasion for Ted, who recited some verses (perhaps from Shakespeare) during the ceremony.
The only other interesting event lately was a trip to Salt Lake City, actually to the Job Corps Center in the nearby town of Clearfield. Going there for the first time, I was surprised at how the surrounding area looks. The most noticeable feature one sees upon arriving at Salt Lake City by plane is the lake, which unfolds in many bays and inlets. These are interspersed among rugged brown mountains completely bare of vegetation. They resemble great mounds of brown earth with patches of snow around their peaks.
Utah, I think, has some of the most mundane-sounding place names, attached to often striking scenery. The state looks greener there than Washington state around Yakima, for example, although some of the same kinds of large irrigation apparatus may be seen. The motel is near a high rounded hill, which with the small bungalows in back, sequestered under the lightly waving foliage of several large trees (unknown kind), somehow reminded me of the locale of a Hoot Gibson [*] movie. Everything, especially the flora, exhibits a greenish sheen early in the morning.
I witnessed one of grandest sunsets over Ogden that I can ever remember on the first evening I arrived. It was memorable not so much for colorful cloud formations or vividness, which it did not lack, but for the vast expanse of territory it reigned over. In order to have an unobstructed view of the sky, I climbed a nearby hill on foot. At last worn-out with trying to reach the top of the hill or an optimal vantage from which to look back, I just stopped where I was and turned around. What a view there was from that spot! In the farther distance I could see the Great Salt Lake ablaze with orange, lying amid innumerable peaks and ridges turning purple and umber. In the nearer distance, beside the lake, the entire city of Ogden could be seen, a maze of lights in regular patterns, as though glimpsed from the window of a plane.
I couldnt estimate how far it was from where I stood to the most distant peak on the horizon, or how wide an arc the scene before me encompassed. It could have been anywhere from 50 to 100 miles, or even more (!) [maybe less too], so vast it appeared. The region about resembles a great bowl or basin that is perfectly flat beside the lake. It suggests the remains of an ancient ocean or sea, which has been drying up for thousands (or perhaps millions) of years.
Ogden seemed like a good place in which to live and possibly one to relocate to in the future. Its prosperous looking, and the people are friendly, the kind one expects to meet in the West. I was sorry to leaveI didnt find Texas [my first foray west of the Mississippi] nearly as interesting, although I havent seen all of it by any means. How shut-in and limited the East seems after a trip West, and uninspiring the scenery and horizonswhich may be no farther than the next hill!
Love, B.
[* Cowboy star of the 30s and 40s.]
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