December 1976

Jimmy Harper, December 1976



Well it was real nice, getting your letter. Elizabeth and I enjoyed reading it; Lillian remembers you and still likes those little books. She is doing better now and talking and when we fuss with her she just fusses back at us. She’s a good little girl. Elizabeth is taking her GED soon and hopes to become an accountant, there are some courses offered. I am good with numbers too. I’ve given some considerable thought with masonry and still pursue my plumbing. We don’t want to make money anyways we just want to live and love. Work together with an end, be happy which we already are, but not get involved with anyone. The way to go is light as possible. But never the less, it something to try, it’s all just paper and ink, even the dollar, and anything that is tangible isn’t for the heart but the hand. The things for the heart are all the things nature gives and you know that.



I remember all those things I learned from you. I remember the farm and how you always had to worry about the numbers. All the things that the land had to offer, to see the planting, the cultivating, the waiting, the growing, the harvest is to see life and death to continual process to see the animals, trees and water, which I know must’ve kept you moving. I guess it must’ve done something to me. The seasons affect the way I am. I know that you know, but I don’t think many people know why? I think that’s the most important thing I know.



There are not many days that I don’t think about that old house of your father and mothers and that little creek in my mind. I wrote a lot of poems about 800. People that I read them to enjoy my poems. I enjoy writing them and reading them also. Some of them just come to me and as I write them they come out perfect and others I have to edit because the verses sometimes don’t correspond. I’ve done it a lot so now I can criticize them. I think a lot. I also write songs and play them.



I was never much of a son to you and I wish I would’ve listen to you more often. I’m glad I learned what little I have. The snow out here doesn’t effect no one until its about 2 feet deep. The snow falls different here then out on the low lands. The mountains and the winter show you just how small man is.



Sometimes I feel like an old farm boy who someday will get to go home. Compared to you I’ll always be a boy. I’m going to send you some poems, one from every year, starting in 1972. Someday I’ll be famous jimmy Harper. I hope you have a good birthday and Christmas. Dale