Special Delivery, 42 Years Late

Never in Raul Alvarez’s wildest dreams did he think that a letter he wrote in 1944 aboard the troop transport ship Caleb Strong--bound for Algeria--to his girlfriend, Terry Espinosa, would be hand-delivered in 1986 by Postmaster General Albert V. Casey. In a special ceremony Wednesday in Washington, Casey gave Alvarez’s letter to Espinosa, who in 1950 became Mrs. Raul Alvarez. GI Alvarez, a former letter carrier in Livermore, Calif., had written: “I love you with all my heart and no one will come between us. Have you started to work yet?” The letter, along with 234 others, turned up recently in an attic in North Carolina, apparently dumped there in a duffel bag along with socks by a soldier who forgot to mail them. Raleigh, N.C., Postmaster Ross Garulski received the letters last month from an exterminator who found them in the attic. Casey, who has vowed to try to locate the senders of all 235 letters, held a luncheon for four of the letter writers.

--In yet another “find,” the University of Texas reported the discovery of three unpublished songs written by composer Aaron Copland when he was 17 years old. The songs, said Karl Korte, a music composition professor at the university, “are extremely precocious for someone 17 years old.” They were found in a collection of uncatalogued manuscripts, donated by French professor Aaron Schaffer, who died in 1957, at the university’s music library. Copland, 85, is best known for such works as “Appalachian Spring” and “Fanfare for the Common Man.” The compositions will have their premiere performance at a concert in November at Symphony Square in Austin.

--Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, who spoke before the U.N. Security Council this week, met with New York’s “radical chic” at a party hosted by Mary Travers, the folk-singing stalwart of Peter, Paul and Mary. Ortega was the guest of honor in Travers’ elegant Manhattan apartment. Among those who mingled with the revolutionary were singer Judy Collins, Village Voice columnist Jack Newfield, Bruce Springsteen’s former guitarist Little Steven Van Zandt, New York City Councilwoman Ruth Messinger and Rabbi Balfour Brickner. Ortega spoke of the contras war and problems that North Americans have in understanding “the South.” “My experience is totally different from yours,” he said. “I come from a country of misery. This ‘public relations’ is something forced upon us by the North. I’m told I must wear this suit and tie. I don’t like wearing suits and ties. I would rather come before you as I am.” Afterward, one guest was heard saying: “It’s odd--in the ‘60s we used to talk like that, didn’t we?”