Change

[ed. - I've been posting these letters for my own reasons that have nothing to do with anybody's entertainment, but this one may fascinate some of you. It's postmarked Nov 30, 1936] ********************** (Cliff, you should feel singly honored. It's been darned few nine page letters I've written in my time. But I had something to tell you & I did so in my own blundering, blunt way, sorry) Dear Cliff:-- [ed. - the first 3 pages are sort of a warm up and is just news about photographs (the writer of the letter is a photographer) and something about some play or musical or something he is putting on somewhere in Chicago. The letter is written on The Groyden Hotel stationary.] Well Cliff, Ive been thinking about you a great deal, and wondering if you had changed your job yet and wondering a lot of other things about you and helping you to find yourself. You don't have to read this if you feel I am too impertinent in interfering in your affairs. But if you are interested here's what I have come to feel about you. Here goes - so grit your teeth & hang on. -- Cliff you are an almost perfect unspoiled example of what too much sex segregation in a Y.M.C.A or boy's school can do for a naturally shy chap. You've go a bad case of YMCA mania. the old Y's sheltering walls have grown so comforting to you that it would be life pulling teeth or throwing you stripped into a snow bank if you were to wake up one morning and find no YMCA and no home to turn to. And yet I feel that is precisely what you should do for a short time at least. Leave Fort Worth, see how people act and a live outside of that idylic spot - get any kind of a job - learn all you can about people - get so you can meet people on easy terms - so you can figure them out and realize and become convinced that you are just as smart, just as strong, just as clever and good looking as some of them and a hell of a lot more blessed with ability than the poor bungling drifting most of them! Get away from home and prove to yourself that you can be entirely self supporting. You'll be surprised how much confidence it will give you. Do any sort of work. But do it well, and thoroughly, and make all the contacts you can. Try your wings and feel how it is to really fly. You say, you want to become an aviator, well, try flying out of the west first. You are like a little bird in nest, all you know is what the nest is made of or what your little brother birdlings look like. The little world you know is so small you cannot make any realy decisions about life until you get out of it & see what life is all about. From the ground, from the top of a fence, from the hedge you will get an entirely new view of your home. You can stand off and compare things as tho you had no part to play in them, as though you were another person. You will have experience to base decisions on. You will be amazed at how easy it is to decide whether you want to be a flier or an athletic coach when you can stand back and look at things impartially. Next, in regards to your wife. You she loves you, but you are somehow not happy with the thought of settling down with her for the rest of your life. Besides, you want to do so many things that a wife would hinder you from doing. Yet you know deep down all the time that you will never do them because you haven't got the guts to make a change or do anything different about the matter. No, you will always be putting the final decision off until tomorrow, and you know tomorrow never comes, old boy. So suppose you work the matter out something like this. You know that you will always feel as tho you missed out on something if you don't go with other girls. So do so - this is 1937, or almost anyway - go with as many different tykes as you can. In other words, get over your hesitance in regards to them. Learn how to win them and leave them and just what to say and do. The chances are that if you actually do love you wife, each girl you go with will look like something in comparison & you will realize that your wife is truly the one for you. On the other hand you may meet some one you like much better. If your wife really loves you you can explain this to her and she should agree. If her love is not strong enough to hold you and your love is not real love you will soon find out. Well, that's enough. I hope you are not sore at me. So long until my next, Cliff Your friend George Eng P.S. Say hello to Bardin, Frank, Buck & Riddle, and please don't take me too seriously. I just want you to use the old bean a little, and maybe you can ease youself ou of your little rut without going at in such an extreme fashion as I suggest.