In Your Next Letter*

In your next letter, would you let me know
if the A&W is still open at Shops Capri? 
Someone would pick me up in a 1955 Chevvy
that smelled of leather, talcum powder,
and whatever guys put on their duck tails
back then. First, we'd drive up one side
of Bernard Avenue, through City Park, then 
back the other side, seeing and being seen.
Then we'd pull in to the A&W, and girls
on roller skates would come out, take our order,
attach a tray to the side window, and bring us
our hamburgers and shakes. Boys used to marvel
at how small I was, yet how much food
I put away. They didn't know I went hungry
all week.

When you write, tell me if you remember
the days when we wrote letters back and forth
all the time, fat envelopes stuffed with
page upon page of our daily doings,
the substance of our lives. How I wish
I had some of those letters now.
Back then, stamps cost just pennies and
letters arrived the next day. Then automation
took over. The cost of a stamp is now a dollar ten,
and letters take over a week to go a hundred miles.
They call it progress.

Do you remember what a big deal it was 
when the "floating bridge" replaced the ferries,
and how a tired doctor, driving home across the lake,
didn't see the span was up, and plunged into the lake?

Do you remember how, on soft summer evenings,
the streets were scented with roses, sweet pea,
pinks, wisteria and lilac? How full of romantic
dreams I was back then, waiting for my life
to begin, when all would magically come right
after so much painful confusion. Do you
remember the letters I wrote you later,
dismayed with what happened instead,
but had to live it anyway with as much humour 
as I could muster?

When you write, tell me what you remember
of those sweet sad, funny times, as we look back
with wise grey heads, laugh lines and hearts
full of secret tears, reflecting on how little 
we knew back then, and grateful that
we made it through not too badly, after all,
considering.

* Inspired by Mary's poem with the same title, which can be read here.