October 21, 1995

Dear Pam:

We received both your letters. So. You have little old ladies who call you up to say they don’t have roaches? Was this meant as a compliment? Maybe she didn’t believe in the adage that “No news is good news,” but that no news is no news, and, therefore, roachlessness must be made known. We loved the poems you sent and I hope to find Mary Oliver’s “A Poetry Handbook.” Yesterday I found the paperback version of “Bird by Bird” and bought it. Started reading it in the car and was as delighted with the writing as if I’d never read it before. Now and then, I meet a non-reader or seldom reader who will make remarks like “Once you’ve read a book, what do you do with it. You probably don’t want to read it again.” This always jolts me; I hardly know how to answer.

We’ve moved. We’re at Cedar Hollow Campground near Bull Shoals, Arkansas. We came here so Dad could take his ham radio test in Gasville. He passed it. Got 100 percent right in the novice test and missed one in the technician test. He has to wait until his license comes to use the radio. We’re well supplied with communications. We did get a cellular phone.

On our way, here, we had to detour through Springfield to begin another root canal on one of my teeth. I had another(worse) raging toothache after I talked to you on Monday; when you can feel a train whistle in your tooth, it’s sensitive. Every tooth on my right side shouted in protest; one bad tooth can stir up the whole neighborhood. I go back next Wednesday from here for the second stage; then we plan to go to Roaring River until the next Monday when hopefully the thing will be done. Already my tooth is happier but I still eat sideways. For several days, I could hardly eat at all–which is no bad thing.

Despite being eating impaired–for lunch, just awhile ago, we went to an old institution in these parts called Gaston’s. It’s a restaurant on stilts over a river and the ceilings are hung with old bikes and trikes and farm tools and other old things. And the food is not outstanding except–a specialty of theirs–Bailey’s Irish Cream Pie. Delicious!

This part of Arkansas is a whole different scene; it’s not like the Buffalo River Country. It’s more resorts and wealthy people and retirees and concrete dams and tourists; not really a favored slot in our traveling life and yet it is beautiful in its own way and Bull Shoals with 1500 people has two funeral homes, a taxidermist, a car wash, and a United Methodist Church–counting the BIC pie, our needs are covered.

Nearly newsless. Mom.