New Job in College

May 29, 1980

– BEAVERS –

This is my first day at the funeral home. So far, all I’ve done is help unload four caskets and kill time in the apartment, tending the phone. We got a “death call” double ago, meaning we’ll have a service sometime this weekend. I came on duty at ten this a.m. and will go off at ten tomorrow morning—24 hours. I’ll be “on” whenever the service comes up, though, even if it’s on my twenty off. I’ll help working, helping with the pale cars, etc.

The apartment is upstairs, adjoining the casket display room. The two of us share a bedroom, living room, kitchen, bathroom, and one closet. The total living space is a little less than the family room. We have air-conditioning, though, and the place is attractive and comfortably furnished.

I am about two blocks from Linda and Val’s place. I’m one block from Chi Alpha House, and half a block from a grocery store, laundromat, bookstore, ice cream restaurant, pizza parlor, and liquor store. I am 189 miles away from home and 192,000,000 miles away from the sun, on the average.

I’ve spent the last week preparing the other place for Val and doing yardwork for the Doctor. Doing yardwork, I have made some money and gotten sunburned on my shoulders. Preparing the place for Val, I have made a lot of mess. Also, I have made some advance. What I did was reduce two spare rooms of junk to one dense room of junk, leaving one moderately empty room available as storage space for about 90% of my possessions (I’ll only get a fraction of them in over here). Linda will know what room I am referring to—it’s the one with the door we used to swing the bottle through. Eddie gave me the OK to use it.

I plan to have most of my things centralized in that room by the time end of the weekend. Val will move in between now and Monday.

Here’s some good news for Linda. The rent is now $110 instead of $120.

If you want a reason for that, you will have to know that Eddie is extremely casual in his management of the apartments. You might want to think he is being generous, but more likely, he forgot what the rent has been up till now.

Also, he’s going to repair the bathroom and the kitchen ceiling. He gave Valerie permission to paint several walls and to buy a better (used) refrigerator and deduct the expense from the rent. She charmed him. Also, he has known her and her family for a while.

I think my new roommate and I will get along very well. That’s good? No, that’s bad, because he’s moving out in two weeks. That’s bad? No, that’s good, because I have a friend to eat with when I also get along well—who may take his place. That’s good? You bet that’s good. It’s very important that when two people the size of grown men are living together in an apartment smaller than the family room, that they be compatible. It is all the more important when they have to perfectly coordinate their schedules, and when, from time to time, one will have to ask the other to stay home a few hours—to cover for him while he goes somewhere important. And when there is only one desk and one closet between them.

I plan to work 20 hrs a week for the Dr. I would like a different kind of work, but if I find something else I will still work ≈ 20 hrs per week. With the salary here I should make about $100/wk. I’ll be able to pay off most of the loan by July.

Question—The Dr. doesn’t take anything out of my paycheck. Gives me cash (same usually a check). Do I have to take out both halves, his and mine? Should I call the IRS in town and find out?

Linda—could you bring my shoes down when you come? I’ll send you a $20 bill.

That’s all for now.

(A hand-drawn floor plan is shown below, labeled “My New Place.” Rooms are marked for “John,” “me,” “living room,” “kitchen,” and “bedroom.” Compass directions humorously point toward “Dumas, Ark,” “California,” “Marthasville,” and “Spain.”)