{"id":2380,"date":"2012-05-10T14:09:40","date_gmt":"2012-05-10T18:09:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/?p=2380"},"modified":"2013-11-03T21:06:23","modified_gmt":"2013-11-04T01:06:23","slug":"mcnair-to-hall-april-6-1983-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/mcnair-to-hall-april-6-1983-2\/","title":{"rendered":"McNair to Hall: April 6, 1983 (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td style=\"vertical-align: top; background: white; float: left;\"><a class=\"shutterset\" title=\"Letter from McNair to Hall, April 6, 1983, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire\" href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/05\/McNair-Hall-19830406-003-unh.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-thumbnail wp-image-2078 alignleft\" style=\"border: 1px solid gray; background: white;\" alt=\"Letter from McNair to Hall, April 6, 1983, Milne Special Collections and Archives, University of New Hampshire\" src=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/files\/2012\/05\/McNair-Hall-19830406-003-unh.jpg\" width=\"250\" height=\"250\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><span style=\"color: #808080;\">[Click image to view]<\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<td style=\"background: white; padding-left: 30px;\">April 6, 1983<\/p>\n<p>Dear Don,<\/p>\n<p>I hope you like this. Please let me<br \/>\nknow!<\/p>\n<p>Love,<\/p>\n<p>Wes<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<hr \/>\n<p><em><strong><span style=\"color: #ff6600;\">Editorial note about this letter:<\/span><\/strong><\/em> The poem referred to is \u201cThe Portuguese Dictionary.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Here is the text of &#8220;The Portuguese Dictionary&#8221; as sent to Hall:<\/p>\n<p>Each morning Charley<br \/>\nthe house painter<br \/>\nwent to work, he left<br \/>\nhis clenched face<br \/>\nholding its unlit<br \/>\ncigar, and his old hands<br \/>\nmoving in their dream<br \/>\nof painting pastel colors<br \/>\non new houses that stood<br \/>\nin cow pastures. He<br \/>\nwas selling sewing machines<br \/>\nin Brazil, just as if<br \/>\nthirty-five years<br \/>\nhad never happened. This<br \/>\nwas why each afternoon<br \/>\nhe looked right through<br \/>\nthe baffled landowners,<br \/>\ncome to imagine<br \/>\ntheir twiggy sticks<br \/>\nwould soon be trees.<br \/>\nWhy when he got home<br \/>\nhe never even saw<br \/>\nhis wagging, black<br \/>\nhabit of a farm dog,<br \/>\nor thought about his mother<br \/>\nnodding in the far room<br \/>\namong the water-stained<br \/>\nexplosions of roses. Already<br \/>\nCharley was at his desk<br \/>\ndown in the cellar,<br \/>\nwaiting for his slow<br \/>\nlegs and hands to come<br \/>\nand get the index cards<br \/>\nout from the shelves of dead<br \/>\npickles and jams. Already<br \/>\nhe was thinking<br \/>\nof the name for sky<br \/>\nwith no clouds in it.<br \/>\nOr of the happy words<br \/>\nthe women of Brazil said,<br \/>\nworking the treadle.<br \/>\nOr of the lovely<br \/>\nlanguage of the face<br \/>\nand legs and hands he learned<br \/>\nfrom a boy one night<br \/>\nbeside the dark sea,<br \/>\nin some other life<br \/>\nof his lost body.<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/the-portugese-dictionary\/\"><span style=\"color: #800000;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<!--themify_builder_content-->\n<div id=\"themify_builder_content-2380\" data-postid=\"2380\" class=\"themify_builder_content themify_builder_content-2380 themify_builder tf_clear\">\n    <\/div>\n<!--\/themify_builder_content-->\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[Click image to view] April 6, 1983 Dear Don, I hope you like this. Please let me know! Love, Wes Editorial note about this letter: The poem referred to is \u201cThe Portuguese Dictionary.\u201d Here is the text of &#8220;The Portuguese Dictionary&#8221; as sent to Hall: Each morning Charley the house painter went to work, he [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2206,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[35322,35504,42982,42963,293],"tags":[],"builder_content":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2206"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2380"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10257,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2380\/revisions\/10257"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2380"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2380"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/web.colby.edu\/csc-mcnair\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2380"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}