Excerpts from Lonely Hearts
![]() Pudd’n’head |
Author’s Preface |
![]() ![]() ![]() weekend?” I asked. ![]() ![]() terview here." |
shopping. ![]() ![]() I kept it. ![]() ![]() little more businesslike. ![]() ![]() her alone. ![]() ![]() |
and fill out the application, and send you a check if I decide to do it?” |
the process. ![]() ![]() would want to meet a woman who would pay $885 to meet me. ![]() ![]() $885. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() guarantee; and, I thought, I could be had a lot cheaper. ![]() ![]() ded: ![]() ![]() I was lonesome again. |
![]() ![]() ![]() most of them seemed to be not from individu- als, but from listing services, e.g.: At the Gate. Meet singles sharing values on
peace, Cultured singles nationwide. Older women / young- Scandinavia, Poland, USSR, South America: World- |
sonal ads for publication in the classifieds of Harper’s magazine and Mother Earth News. I wound up subscribing to nine of the services. What followed, and is presented in this book, is an amazing adventure in communication and seduction. ![]() ![]() a survey of lonely hearts clubs. ![]() ![]() man’s (and 138 women’s) experience. |
ces generate more immediate results, but
work best in metropolitan areas, which did me no good. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() scription cost $29. ![]() ![]() nough, if you find a good one, and the right one for you. |
For the result, read the chapter titled “Terry” (but don’t read it first). |
caught my interest; 14 others wrote to me from my listings, and two telephoned. ![]() ![]() three letters and one telephone call in response to the Harper’s ad, 38 letters and 25 telephone calls in response to the Mother Earth ad (not counting a threatening “good luck” chain letter over the name “St. Jude,” and a tele- phone call from a guy looking for a place for his girl friend to crash). ![]() ![]() contacts (not counting St. Jude and the guy with the girl friend). |
dence from five, and got it from three. ![]() ![]() corresponded also with a woman who con- tacted me initially by telephone (and married her). ![]() ![]() (including a bride). |
But some of the women used the telephone
i- nitially, and it worked. ![]() ![]() |
initial contact.
|
May 19, 1990 Dear Ms. 1381-FL: |
business stationery and word processor; they’re what I use to write letters). ![]() ![]() know if you got me on a list, too; so my résu- mé: ![]() ![]() house (3 levels, 10 rooms) and office (sepa- rate structure) I built in the woods, atop a steep hill about a mile outside the smallest town in the world. ![]() ![]() ew, 16, live with me; they’re good boys. ![]() ![]() a country lawyer, and I do a lot of writing and some publishing (I’ve had articles in Esquire and Rolling Stone and one book published commercially. ![]() ![]() myself and one by my cat, and have four on the way, which I’ll publish myself if no one else thinks they’re good enough). ![]() ![]() |
thy, but I have no material needs. ![]() ![]() banjo and guitar (folk and country), and I love all music, from opera to Opry. ![]() ![]() rapher. ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() chimney, drink like a fish, and play cards with a passion. ![]() ![]() don’t read a whole lot; Henry Miller said he regretted having read so much) . . . . ![]() ![]() fearless and a bit mad. ![]() ![]() weeks); 5'8", 160 pounds. . . . Sincerely, Natty Bumppo |
June 9, 1990 Dear Natty, |
elementary ed major until a professor insisted that I rewrite a story because anthropomor- phism was dead and realism was in. ![]() ![]() you ever heard of anything so absurd? ![]() ![]() dean asked me why I was changing majors and I said: ![]() ![]() grasshopper talk.” . . . |
n’t happy.
|
![]() ![]() ![]() ice cream and popcorn and I have never been camping (I was once told I was un-American). . . . ![]() ![]() bathroom in the woods. |
men might be intimidated, but as a writer you, I trust, will understand. Mary Houston P.S. |
Surely you’re afraid of something. ![]() ![]() mean you’d go over Niagara Falls in a barrel? June 13, 1990 Dear Mary, |
Mary [and, that’s how it begins . . . . ] |
“Over hamburgers sold!”