Spanish textbooks might not seem like something you’d expect to run across, especially ones like this, which obviously have some years on them.

My dad spent about a year and a half in the mid-1940s in the Dominican Republic, working as a surveyor for Standard Oil. He was 21 when he went down there, a small-town kid in a foreign country. He learned Spanish there, and continued to study it for most of the rest of his life, even going to language school in Mexico when he was in his 70s.

During his time in the Dominican Republic, he wrote letters to his sister Elizabeth, who kept them. I’ve got them now.

For most of my life, my dad’s dry sense of humor has been a source of great entertainment to me; it has gone dormant lately, which makes reading these letters a powerful mix of high entertainment and great mourning.

Here are some of my favorite things he wrote.

Anybody that enjoys living had better not criticize the government (of the Dominican Republic).
-(dated only Saturday, and written in 1944 from Houston, as he waited to go to the Dominican Republic. He got to the DR in March.)

The main hobby of the children around here is to stand outside our door and stare at the Americanos.
-March 26, 1944

There is a fruit they call the guanabana. It grows about 6 or 8 inches long and is sort of egg shaped. It is covered with a tough skin that has a resemblance of thorns on it but they won’t stick you. The insides have a sweet taste but make you think you are eating somebody’s attempt at making synthetic rubber.
-April 1, 1944

I am using a Spanish typewriter that the office in the capital sent out to us. Since it varies slightly from an American typewriter, don’t be surprised at anything that it writes.
-May 11, 1944

We went to the show last Sunday. Among other features was a British newsreel and it sure did tell how the British were winning the war.
-May 12, 1944

I won $4.40 on a horse named Sleepy.
-September 4, 1944 (reporting on going to the horse races)

I bet you thought I wasn’t going to write to you any more but I get lots of fun fooling people like that.
-September 19, 1944

Sparks is now laid up in the hospital. He had a boil…and he let the local doctor (that is just an honorary title) fool with it.
-October 1, 1944

You said in your letter that Ernie went to visit Leon and Betty. I am glad to hear that they had company but I would like to know who Ernie is.
-February 21, 1945

Oh, yes, from the numerous boyfriends mentioned in each letter you write, I would say that you are what is commonly known as “fickle.”
-February 27, 1945

I liked Miami very much, mainly because it was so different from anyplace else I ever was – I dare say that there are more ways to get rid of your money in Miami than in any other city in the world.
-March 5, 1945

You are always speaking of playing cards – what kind of cards do you play – and for how much?
-March 16, 1945

San Juan has a movie theatre so we get to go to the movies once in a while…last night we saw a British film, which I hope doesn’t happen again.
-April 1, 1945

When I started this, I had a lot of things to say, but I seem to have forgotten most of them so I can’t do anything else but quit.
-May 9, 1945

I might consider going to Baltimore but I don’t have any business up there and beside the trend in the Green family seem to be towards becoming —– Yankees so I don’t want to expose myself needlessly.
-May 20, 1945

This is really a nice camp and I wouldn’t mind living here at all if there were someone here to do nothing with me.
-May 27, 1945

***
There was more, of course. He wrote about the work, trouble with the big bosses, the shortage of tires, what he wanted to do when he came back to the states, things he bought for himself (a camera, a watch, a custom-made suit), his Dominican girlfriend Blanca, and gave lots of (probably unsolicited) advice to his sister. Together, it creates real-time view of events that were pivotal in his life.

But it’s the pieces, the glimmers of his signature humor, that I most treasure. And it helps ease me through the loss of that humorous outlook.

Lubbock, Texas
photographed 8.13.2013