Your loving,
“DAD.”
The Boy Is Having His Troubles as a Branch Manager
Dear Hal:
Mother and I received your letter several days ago and I have given quite some thought to the problems you mention, because I wanted to advise you right, if at all.
Note you say you are not meeting with the success you expected to, in your present campaign and you attribute it to several causes, among them a consumers’ hunger strike, conservative buying and lack of effort on the part of the salesmen.
Well—now, of course, the Old Man may not know as much about it as you do, but from several other statements you made in your letter, I’m wondering if you have really struck the real reason.
I don’t want to misjudge you, Boy, but those reasons you give are becoming so much of a chestnut to me—I’ve heard ’em so often that I’m pretty sure I know their origin. I know that during the holidays—just before Christmas—you could hear those records being played on almost any talking machine that you cared to listen to, but I thought surely, with the coming of the New Year you’d forget the “Stove League Chatter” and chase “Old Man Gloom” out into the sunshine.
You know, I’m reminded of a fellow I used to know when I wore knee breeches. Tom Foreman was a boy who was raised in our town and who never knew what it was to run off to go swimming, rob a melon patch or play hookey. His folks always dressed him nice and he was a fair student in school, but he never batted over about a hundred and twenty-six in the back alley league, so, of course, there was no farewell reception tendered him by “the gang” when his folks decided to send him away to college.