"Hey Rube! I Love You"

page added May-7-99
Last updated: May 2003

cover

This two page article, accompanied by a full page portrait and a smaller pic that appeared in The Proud Highway. The article continues the tradition of HST re-using old material. Or perhaps it was an editorial descision to pad out the writing. If you have Where Were You When the Fun Stopped? the middle of this article will be disappointingly familiar.

The beginning is quite funny and the end is quite mystifying. HST is out swimming and thinking about his sweetheart. Yes, that's the exact word he used, sweetheart, and writing her a letter. Then he goes into a rather odd childhood memory about visiting his great-grandmother. He comes to realize that the only reason the family went to see Memo in those wartime days was to con her out of her gas ration coupons.

Then the article shoots into the booklet text from Fun Stopped and HST writes about William S. Burroughs, Robert Mitchum and his need for serious fuel. The ending is rather short, with HST off to mail his love letter, but the reader doesn't know what it's about, or exactly who his sweetheart is.

Then I got to thinking. A friend of mine suggested that the article is about HST realizing that he has lived the American Dream. Perhaps you can take from the title that the person he loves is named Rube, or that rube is just another way of saying fool. Hey Fool! I Love You. Makes sense to me. Or perhaps, and this is a bit of his longshot, his sweetheart isn't an actual person. Maybe it's music. I'll probably have to read the article again, but perhaps the middle part is his letter...hmm, all quite confusing. I'm sure there's meaining in it somewhere.

This was certainly a different kind of article. Another friend of mine said it was "cute" and I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps, when you can look back at such a long and varied life as HST's, the rough edges smoothen out with time, wisdom and love.

This issue was RS 812, May 13th, 1999.