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My dear boy, (from Fred G. to Fred W. Pfahl) Birmingham Sun eve Apr. 29, 1927. Was very glad to get your letter and highly pleased with the tone of it. Am glad you are getting so much playing to do but you must be careful you don't take on to much. You know by this time that you must have a reasonable amount of sleep and rest or you will break down and you know how I feel about your depending on music alone to make your way. Yes I think you have done very well so far but you will find from now on that you will find rough spots in the road hard to negotiate and may have to depend entirely on your own resources and when these times come your great danger will be in getting discouraged and want to give up and this will be just the time when you will prove yourself one way or the other. I believe you will make good and be an honorable upright man. Even your Uncle Dan believes in you and he is a pretty keen judge. One piece of advice I want to emphasize, but I really think you realize its importance without it, is to keep within your means and not go into debt for anything you can get along without, unless it is to buy property or some other means of sound investment. Be good to Margaret, we think a great deal of her and believe she will make you a splendid wife but you must not impose your own will upon her to much.
You will find as the years go by that you will have interests and pleasures apart from her and be none the worse for it and if you want to be happy you must concede the same prerogatives to her. Never object if she wants to do things that I was willing for your mother to do. Satisfy her that you trust and have perfect confidence in her and she wont disappoint you. Wont sermonize any further but ask you to do something for me. I suppose by the time you get this Mom will be started and as I forgot to caution her not to forget my keys, I suppose she wont think of them.
My tool box is here and it don't do me a bit of good because I have no keys to open it. Please make our grand hunt and gather up all the keys you can find, there are two bunches of them and keep the keys to the tool box you have and send me the rest in card board box by Parcel Post to this address. Mom may be there and if you can only find our bunch, she probably has it, but if she hasn't I will have to wait until you send them. I left them with her so Wilbur could pack and lock the box or I would have brought them with me. I always kept them in one of the drawers in the chiffarobe and you will probably find them there if mom hasn't got them.
Would have written to you sooner but have had many letters to write getting information that I will require here, find that I have become very rusty on a good many things in the three years I have been out of the game and have written about 30 letters in the past three weeks and all in the evening after work so you can see I've not done much running around. Birmingham is, what I have seen of it a very attractive city in many respects, very wide and well-paved streets and in the residence sections a city of bungalows but the colored sections are awful. The climate is not so much different than it is at home except that it is very warm all summer and of course the winters much milder. They very rarely ever have snow, but cold rains and everybody wears winter underclothes and overcoats the same as at home and need them at that. We have had white frosts three mornings in the last ten days although people here say that is unusual for this time of year but it is generally up in the 70's or better in the heat of the day. We have some spindling roses in bloom in the yard and the trees are all fully leaved out but we have no such beautiful leaves as you have at home. There's a good many straw hats on the streets but they have not fully blossomed yet and so far since I'm stuck here we have had more rain than sunshine. Must close now and go to bed as it is bedtime and I have to be up at six every morning.
Give my love to Margaret and write when you can although I expect you will have to depend more on Mom to write then on me unless you want something special. Take care of the keys as soon as you can.
With best wishes for your happiness and success I am, your loving dad.
1216 W33rd st. Birmingham,Ala.