Texas Valentine

On Valentine's Day my senior year I was talking with my roommate Dick Anderson '34 about the chance of finding a job, when I glanced over at his desk. The handwriting on an envelope looked familiar. "It's a Valentine from my girlfriend in Texas," he said.

I reached into my coat pocket and drew out an envelope just like it—with the same handwriting and postmark—addressed to me.

The letters were identical, signing off: "When are y'all coming down here to see me? All my love, Texas Tammy."

"I met her last summer," Dick said.

We agreed not to let on to Texas Tammy that we'd read each other's letters. We went right on corresponding with her, but the urge to trek to the Lone Star State had vanished

We decided each of us would send her a postcard on Valentine's Day, disclosing that we were on to her youthful shenanigans.

"Hi, ya'll," Texas Tammy wrote back. "I still live in a small town in Texas, married to a successful doctor, and we have six children. Your postcards, which were apparently read by someone in the post office before they were delivered, are the talk of the town. Hope I can live this down! Those were the days. Too bady'all didn't come down here and see me. My husband did, and he says he's still glad he made the trip, even though he didn't realize at the time that he was just one of my many correspondents!"

Anderson in 1934