Oct 24th 1953 SF Seminary

Written on San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, California Stationary


Oct 24, 1953

Dear Aunt Nell,

It was so good to hear from you, and get caught up on the news. There sure must be a lot of accidents around there.I guess it just goes to show that life is very instable, and unpredictable.

I got a letter from your son again. He seems to not only be lonesome but frustrated to. His letters surely are funny. We’ve been having beautiful weather down here, with the temperature in the 70’s and 80’s most of the time. Also the full moon on the warm nights adds to the interest.

You asked about this dame I’m dating. She’s a sophomore at Marin J.C., a sister in law to my last year next door neighbor. She is 5 ft. 4 in., weighs 127 lbs (a little chubby, but not bad). As a matter of fact this affair is cooling off, and it won’t be long until I’m centering my attention in other directions. Personally, I think it costs to much to do any dating, so I am contemplating the dropping of all (so called) extra curricular activities. Also this type of social life take time which I can ill afford to spare. I really think Paul had the right idea, if one is to be wholly and totally devoted to God’s kingdom there is no room for diversions that women bring.

I preached my first sermon last Friday. I followed the best preacher in our class and  probably the best preacher in the school. My of came as an anticlimax. Some of the comments were as follows: on appearance, “uncross your eyes, stop looking at your nose”, “take the blond hair off your coat”, “ Don’t you ever wash your shirt”; “Did you have strawberries for lunch? those red spots on your ties?”: “gestures stiff”, “too eloquent”, “need more use of pauses”, “dynamic speaking”, “powerful voice”, “good thought”, “good illustrations”, “too much reading,get away from your manuscript”, On the whole I feel the boys were too generous, and the criticisms were just. I am enclosing a copy of this sermon for you Aunt Nell, uncorected, so don’t fly off about my bad spelling, and grammar.

It’s time i was getting to work, so had better close this letter.

Love Bruce