Ronald Rabbit Is a Dirty Old Man

22

Miss Mary Katherine O’Shea

and Miss Barbara Judith Castle

Bar-Bison Dude Ranch

Altamont, New Mexico

Dear Merry Cat and B.J.:

By now I trust you are both settled in for the summer, riding spirited bays and roans and mucking out the stables. When I think of you on the horses, I wish I were your saddles. When I think of the stables, I am reminded of that furnished room in Darien.

May I offer some unsolicited advice? It is, after all, one of the prerogatives of old age. If you’re not in the mood, just skip the following paragraph.

Here goes. The thing is, the two of you are very much involved with one another. As I’m sure you have already come to realize. This never constituted any enormous hangup while you were at school, because the other four daughters of Lancaster were around, and there were various males, myself not (I fondly hope) the least among them.

Now you’re out in God’s country with nothing much around but squares on vacation and cowboys on horseback. You may dig some of the cowboys — anything’s possible — in which case there’s no problem. You may even dig some of the squares, as far as that goes, in which case again there’s no problem.

But it’s also possible that you won’t, and that there won’t be any other interesting females around either, and that you’ll have only each other.

If so, there’s nothing to worry about. That’s the whole point, there’s nothing to worry about. The only worry is worry, to paraphrase FDR. Because you might start brooding that you’re lesbians and that that’s bad and all the rest of it. If you wind up spending the entire summer just balling each other, that’s perfectly fine. It’s much better than balling someone else whom you don’t like, just to convince yourself you’re straight. End of lecture.

Things have been generally good for me lately. As you can see from the return address, I’ve moved slightly uptown and am living with Rozanne Gumbino. I think you read some of my letters about her.

Have a good summer, kids. I envy you all that fresh air and sunshine. But New York does have its compensations, as you know.

I don’t suppose you’ll ever get a chance to get away? But if the summer is a bummer and you quit early, please make it to New York if possible. You can always stay overnight at our place. Rozanne is anxious to meet you.