Fare Forward: Letters from David Markson

Oct 1 ’03

Dear Laura:

Poor innocent child, thinking a man of 117 years of age would remember what T.S. Eliot quote, that long after I’d sent it. Have you not heard of “senior moments”—or weeks — the current euphemism for rampant senility?

Re your job,¹⁰ Cavafy, a great poet, worked for the Dept of Public Works in Alexandria for 30 years. (That’s in my new book. I think it’s in my new book.) (Also, that’s the original Alexandria, not the one in Virginia.)

Did I say I was 117? Now that the heat/humidity has finally lifted, I sometimes don’t feel a day over 109.

Have you guys learned all the words to “On Wisconsin” yet, or just the first stanza?¹¹

Hey, again, stay well, etc. Oh, hallelujah — in the context of that last phrase, I just remembered what Eliot quote! So, do so, hear?

Thine—

David

10 A temp job I had on arriving in Wisconsin, doing administrative work (“the clerical equivalent of digging ditches/cleaning sewers,” as I’d told him in a letter on 9/20/03) for the Fitchburg Department of Public Works.

11 “On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! / Plunge right through that line! / Run the ball clear down the field, / A touchdown sure this time. (U rah rah) / On, Wisconsin! On, Wisconsin! / Fight on for her fame / Fight! Fellows! — fight, fight, fight! / We’ll win this game.”