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letterhead William G. Wedlake 1438 North State Parkway, Chicago, Illinois 60610 inserted in letterhead 235 W. Bluff St Marquette, Mich. 49855

Thursday, May 7 Dear Jack - it is always good go hear a voice crying out of the Wilderness. The Folk Bash at Mountain View sounds like great stuff to me. I have long been an admirer of the virile Herr Driftwood. I can recall a bravura number of his called "Tying Knots in the Devil's Tail." I believe that my old friend Harold Sherman the Psychology and ESP expert occupies a chalet in the mountains there.

   I will not call Marquette a God forsaken community because there are by my count 25 churches to serve the spiritual aspirations of the citizenry and all of the most fundamental kind.   The blow that really struck me down was that I who had come here seeing only an honest occupation at my trade was told that bookstores in this land of night do not exist.   Of course such a detail as that, I living in the cloud cuckoo land of Chicago would not have checked out in advance.
    This is a sort of return to the roots for me because my father came to the copper and iron country from Cornwall, England back around the turn of the century and was involved in the bloody labor  battles of that  era here and later in the coal pits of LaSalle County, Ill. where I was born.  alas!  the only trace left of Cornish influence are the pasty shops that are slowly giving way to pizza parlors.
    Re: Stud's "Hard Times" I was delighted to note that Jimmy Sheridan has number one spot in the book.  Keep an eye peeled for Tom Colter's book of short stories "The Beach Umbrella"  from U. of Iowa Press.  Due about now.  

Tears and Lamentations From Bill Wedlake Northern Michigan University here may be wide open to a person of your belle-lettristic abilities.