Soldier Boy, Oh My Little Soldier Boy, I'll Be True To You.

This will be a year long journey. I will publish the letters on the day they were written 50 years ago. They are sitting in a tin box in their special opaque airmail envelopes with the red, white and blue strips around the edges for Par Avion as we used to say. They will be kind of sporadic during the courtship phase as we were able to call each other once in a while. Once he is shipped to Germany in February 1962 and we were married they will be almost daily. It is funny how 2 people with almost nothing in common would meet and form an ever-lasting bond. We were both born when FDR was President He moved to the west side of Manhattan from Anasco, P.R when he was about 2. I was raised in Queens. Until college there was never any reason for our paths to cross. If ever there was anything we did right in this world...it was finding each other. My story may not be so grand but it is my story.
There is a whole other life we lived apart up to this time. But that is another story.

Letter number 3

July 26, 1961
Long Island City, N.Y.

Dear Alberto,

I was very surprised to hear that you had joined the army and even more surprised when I received your letter last week. I met Dave Riba at Manolo’s party last Saturday and he told me they had made you a corporal already. Next week you’ll probably be Commander-in-Chief or something. What made you decide to enlist just now?
I have joined the “Workers of America”. My major in school was Physics and I just got a job working for Electronic Testing Laboratories on East End Avenue (whose stationary I borrowed for this letter). I am sitting in my air-conditioned laboratory waiting for the temperature to hold at 77 degrees before I can make any tests. (I am testing light bulb longevity.)
From your letter I gather that you like the army very much, except for it’s lack of the opposite sex. I would like very much to spend some Sunday over there, perhaps August 6th. I have no idea how to get there so you better give me explicit instructions, as I get lost very easily. When I get there you better not dump me in any of the garbage cans or I won’t come back (ha-ha). I am including one of my “mug shots” to keep you company.

That’s all, Roger and Out,
Joan

Previous to this he had sent me a post card from Puerto Rico and a letter inviting me to visit him in boot camp in Ft. Dix, N.J. I don’t know what happened to them. He was tall and athletic, not classically handsome and different from any of my other boy friends. When I asked my friend Lucy about him she said he was a great guy. He would give you the shirt off his back if you needed it.


We had first paired up at a graduation beach party at Jones Beach in New York in May, 1961. We had seen each other previously in passing during free hours on campus. Neither one of us paid too much attention to each other. We would frequent the small caf where I would play pinochle and sometimes Paul Simon would play his guitar. Once we started dating we hit all the Spanish parties as he was a terrific dancer....Merengue, Rumba, Paso Doble, Maracumbe.. I was not so good but no one was looking at me.

The Jones Beach Tower

I had just graduated from Queens College and enrolled at NYU. As it was a commuting City University I did not have any tuition. I only paid for books and lab fees.

The QC Administration Building on "The Quad"

I did not know that he had quit school and joined the military. He had broken up with a girl he loved very much. She was Jewish and he was Puerto Rican and her family was not pleased. He said he gave her up because he couldn’t stand to see her torn so between family and love. At the beach party we had a good time swimming and picnicking and clowning around. He had picked me up and pretended he was going to dump me in a trash barrel.

NEXT INSTALLMENT ...LETTER 4 on August 28th.

What was happening in the outside world. It was known as the upside down year. 1961 whichever way you turned it.

John F Kennedy was President. · He challenged the country to land a man on the moon before the end of the decade. I remember how scared we were that the Russians seemed to be beating us into space. In 1969 we sat as a family and watched the event itself. It was cold war era. On July 25th he gave a widely watched TV speech on the Berlin crisis, warning "we will not be driven out of Berlin." Al was sent there as part of that commitment. Kennedy urged Americans to build fallout shelters, setting off a four-month debate on civil defense. President Kennedy also created the Peace Corps to improve education, agriculture, and living standards in Latin America, Asia, and Africa.




Best Movies: West Side Story, Guns of Navarone ( Our first date ), The Hustler, Splendor in the Grass (One of my Favorite movies), Ten Woman

Songs
Big Bad John (Jimmy Dean)
Blue Moon (The Marcels)
The Lion Sleeps Tonight (The Tokens)
Michael (The Highwaymen)
Pony Time (Chubby Checker)
Runaround Sue (Dion)
Runaway (Del Shannon)
Surrender (Elvis Presley)
Take Good Care Of My Baby (Bobby Vee)
Tossin' and Turnin' (Bobby Lewis)

· Average income $5,315 per year
· New car $2,275
· Gallon of gas .25¢
· Loaf of bread .21¢
· Motor Trend magazine .35¢

· The Pendletones" group was formed this year which would later be called, "The Beach Boys".
· Chevrolet released it's new, "Impala SS" mid year. Due to it's late arrival, only 453 were sold.



· The Bullwinkle Show starts on NBC-TV and runs until 1964
· IBM introduced the Selectric typewriter.
· In May, FCC Chairman Newton Minow claims that television is a "vast wasteland."
· Coca Cola introduced Sprite to compete against 7-Up.
· Ray Kroc buys out the McDonald brothers and takes control over the hamburger chain.
· Johnson & Johnson introduces Tylenol.
· The New York Yankees win the World Series by defeating Cincinnati in five games.
· Roger Maris and Mickey Mantle compete to beat Babe Ruth's record of 60 home runs. Maris hits number 61 on October 1st.
· FM stereo is introduced.
· Bob Dylan makes his debut in Greenwich Village.

• Joan and Al begin to court