Folly Read Online Free PDF

Lenore,
    I got your letter and just when I needed it. It came on a day when I was feeling pretty discouraged about being here. I was out on the job and this guy, Buster, was up on the truck lifting and throwing down these big iron mothers. He’s part of my crew so I figured I should help him out. They were too heavy for any one person to lift alone so I called up to him—Buster, you sure got a high estimation of your own strength. How’d you like a hand for lifting those damn two-tons. He mumbled back about how it would take four girls to lift one of them. I said I doubted it. So he said he’d do half and leave the other half for me to do by myself. Big shit. No deal, I said.
    So he thought he’d proved that women shouldn’t be up here on these jobs. I said I wasn’t crazy or dumb. I said—a brain Il take up a lot of slack in your muscles, Buster.
    Willy, the one I share my lodging with, she and I had just been talking the night before about how these guys get to you. There are a whole bunch of them I’d like to beat the shit out of Willy and I decided the best thing was to just ignore them, not let them know if you were getting razzed. Anyway there I was the next day telling this jerk off. Then I got your letter and I said to myself-you wouldn’t catch Lenore taking any shit off these guys. I didn’t know how Willy would be because she’s kind of different from anyone I ever knew, like she makes up rules for herself, things like getting up earlier than we have to for making it to work in the morning. To me it’s glory not to have my pa making up the rules. She comes from a real classy family. Her father’s a doctor. I don’t understand what she’s doing here. Anyway we’d sort of made the rule together that we wouldn’t let these guys razz us, but when I told her about Buster, she laughed and said she’d wished she’d been there to see me tell him off.
    I’m learning so much being away from home. I guess you did too when you moved out from your ma’s but for me it’s really something to be so far away. No family to fight with. You wouldn’t believe how strong I’ve gotten. My muscles feel like steel, and I really like this feeling in my body like there are no soft spots. Willy says by the time this pipeline is finished, we’ll be in shape to start the women’s army. She says she thinks I have a soft spot here and there. She means for you.
    How are you? I miss you very much. I lie in bed at night and I try real hard to imagine you with me and there are times when I think I can feel you in my arms. There’s nothing else that was ever as good in my life as finding you to love. Willy and I talk about you and Robin, that’s her lover in Oregon, all the time, sometimes late into the night when we should be sleeping. I can’t imagine if Willy wasn’t a lesbian. Then I wouldn’t be able to talk about you. I feel pretty lucky. Lots of the other women up here are probably lesbians too, I think, but I don’t know for sure. Willy just came right out and said it, so maybe the rest of them will too when they get to know me better. What I haven’t figured out is whether they seem like lesbians because of the jobs they do, or whether they know jobs like welding and stuff because they ’re lesbians. Get it?
    I was thinking maybe it sounds weird to you since I never said the word or anything back home to hear me calling myself a lesbian. I just know I could never go the other way so why not. The other reason was because of reading that book I sent,
Sappho Was A Right-On Woman
. Did you read it yet? You probably did, you’re such a good reader. Can you imagine me reading a whole book in a week? You must’ve been agood influence on me. Anyway it sure wasn’t like any book I ever had to read in school. When you finish tell me what you think. I’ll send you more if you want them. The woman who