The standoffish period lasted two hours, if you are wondering.
Unlike Mom, Jerry kept no love letters for children to discover after his death — or if he did his mother disposed of them.
There is some other interesting correspondence, though.
The Italian Notes
There are three tiny notes in Italian on some tiny intricate notepaper involving a cellophane piece printed with … oh, I can’t describe it. Here’s a photo:
The three notes are in bad cursive so my attempts to run them through Google translate resulted in only, “Happy new year … American friend … our daughter … baby chickens … Sincerely, Caterina.” The only girl in the Vespa photo that would be Jerry’s age would be the one on the left. I don’t know, there was a girlfriend from when he went to high school in Saudi Arabia, perhaps Caterina is the same. But for God’s sake, the man was enough of a mystery to me already, now I have Italian cursive on top of it?