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typed letter (BRITISH SIZE CORRESPONDENCE PAPER)
(OURS IS CALLED AMERICAN QUARTO)
Chicago, Sept. 7, '69
Dear Jack:
Thanks for your letter sent about two weeks or so ago, and I trust you and your
family are at least tolerably well.
I had occasion to visit the K & B book store , so conveyed your best wishes to
Wedlake, who seemed relieved to know you weren't peeved at him for his failure to write to you. He is perhaps one of the busiest people in that store.
While downtown, I noted that the Economy Book store is now located on the south
side of Madison Street just a few doors east of Wells Street, where they have been a few years now, presumably since your departure from Chicago. Like yourself, I spent many hours in the aggregate of years, sometimes buying, oftimes not, but I miss the former business and the one small movie house where I saw many excellent movies such as aren't produced these days. I used to attend Kid Howard's gym in the Arcade bldg., where I sometimes saw Jack Dempsey, who came to work out at wrestling, also Benny Leonard workout there a few times before. Kud Howard died sometime in WW 2, the bldg. torn down to make way for the small walkway twixt Clark & LaSalle streets. The old- time bookstores have all but disappeared from Chicago - high rents, I suppose.
When I advised Mrs. Sheridan's man friend on the occasion I wrote about, I had
no idea that SHE was planning to go the box car route, a most hazardous way for a woman, even when economically necessary, and I hope she fares well, though I must say that her man friend sounded like a 'phoney to me over the 'phone.
I don't go anywhere much, but did go all the way down to the South Shire dist-
rict last Sunday - along the So. Chgo. branch of the Illinois Central R.R., though I traveled by bus (almost 2 hrs. from my place). Once again, it was sad to see how 79th street had deteriorated, and the Irish bar with the longest mahogany (Hanley's) had gone and every Irish bar on 79th street along with it. I went down there at the request of Josephine Holmes, a lifetime friend of Mrs. Mead. I tolerated her for some 45 years to please my wife. The woman was telephone operator for the I.C. R.R. for about forty-odd years. She's a disaster area as far as I 'm concerned, but she and my wife first met when my wife first came to Chicago at a rooming house run by a typical New England couple. This Josephine had one thing in her favor in that she is kindhearted (offered my wife 1,200 dollars, all she had in a savings account, when she learned that we were awaiting completion of the sale and the money from our old tearass place in Maidstone). You may remember the one occasion you and Mrs. Conroy came to see us at Wallace Street. This Josephine had some small ability at reading horoscopes, something hardly any woman can resist hearing. The temperature was 92 degrees that Sunday, and if I hadn't found a few things in our flat which belonged to her and taken with me to her, I'D think the trip was a total loss. It's always a bit cooler near the lake, a thing I always notice when I go to see J. Sheridan, who lives (co-incidentally) a half-block west of Sheridan Road.
Well, fall seems to be slowly coming, our one good season here, and maybe I can
get busy writing again, and I know you keep busy. Regards to Mrs. Conroy, your daughter and her family.
written in blue ink Mead
written in blue ink P.S: underlined I listen regularly to R. Cromie's Book Beat underlined on T.V. Did you see the documentary re: the beatings of Irish school kids on N.B.C?