Diary entry for September 27, 1967:
There is no diary entry for September 27, 1967. Nor is there one for the day after that, or that day after that, or the day after that, or . . .
Nope. No more diary entries. Yeah, I was disappointed, too when I realized they don't cover our whole time in Los Angeles. I have flipped through every page in the diary (even separating the gilded edges that hadn't been separated in a long time, or ever) and other than what Mom wrote in the very front of it . . .
. . . there is nothing else written anywhere. There is no explanation for the stoppage in the upcoming letters I have read so far, either. At this point I can only speculate as to the reason. Maybe she was too busy with laundry since the dryer broke the day before. Maybe she skipped a few days and just decided not to bother with it any more since there were too many do-nothing days anyway. Maybe with all the letter writing she was doing she didn't want to also be bothered with making daily diary entries. Or maybe she found out my grandmother was keeping all of her letters and decided those would be a sufficient record of the Los Angeles trip, making the diary redundant.
In any case, it was nice while it lasted those two months. What this means going forward is that there won't be a guaranteed post every day. So now you'll know how my grandmother felt, not knowing what we were doing from day to day and hoping for a letter from Linda every time she went to the mailbox.
Given the total number of letters and their spacing so far, we can expect at least one letter per week. I may split the longer letters into two separate posts when it makes sense to do so. We may also take an occasional trip in The Wayback Time Machine to fill in some of the longer gaps between letters. I do still owe you a post on the Mickey Mouse bank from Disneyland.
Letter postmarked (and dated) September 26, 1967:
The CCZCC now stands at 3.
"Dear Mother,"
"Just a note to inform you of our latest buying spree. A Polaroid camera - less than $100, but not much less. Dave is just like a kid with it and says over and over, "What an invention!" David Wayne is still a big ham and he is really enjoying the posing. I am enclosing a picture of David Wayne with his bank collection and his turtle, Snappy. We all are enjoying the camera even if it is expensive. Oh well, we needed to go on a diet anyway!"
[Too bad I don't have that picture Mom sent in this letter.]
[Ok, let's assume Mom was exaggerating and the price of the Polaroid camera was only $70. That is still about $511 in 2017 dollars. Every $10 above that in 1967 is an additional $73 in today's money. So, wow, Dad really spent a lot of money on that camera, like spending between $500 and $700 today. It sounds like he really enjoyed it, so that's good. And I know for certain it was put to good use.]
[I don't know how long Dad had that particular Polaroid camera, but it seems like he always had one while we were growing up. I know he had a Polaroid at least into the mid 1980s because whenever one of my sisters would be picked up at the house for the first time by a new date, Dad would take their picture together. Since it was a Polaroid camera, they had to wait for it to develop so they knew Dad had a picture of them before they left the house. Just in case . . .]
"Speaking of weight . . . I went to the doc yesterday and I hadn't gained an ounce. Dave looks more pregnant than I do or even will in seven months. A big flu (Asian variety) epidemic is in store this year, so the doctor gave me and David Wayne a flu shot and Dave has to get one, too. My infection looks a lot better so the good doctor says. The flu shots will cost $30 so it's about time I had some good news."
[I guess the Asian flu is nothing new.]
[Yes, my dad always seemed to have a belly on him, not real big, but a belly nonetheless. You may have noticed it in some of the pictures already posted. But he definitely wasn't a big guy by any means. I guess all his extra weight was just concentrated in one spot.]
"Keep Mike in line, work as little as you can get by with, and write soon."
"Love,
Linda"
"P. S. - I bought a photo album this morning, but I don't think I can put the pictures in as fast as Dave takes them! I also bought David Wayne a world globe this morning. He is having a good time with it and can already find Los Angeles and Dallas."
Diary entry for September 26, 1967:
Tried to wash today but the clothes dryer broke. I bought David Wayne a globe and also a photo album to put all our pictures in.
I'm sure the photo album Mom bought today was the older of the two albums that contain the Los Angeles photos. It says it's specifically for holding Polaroid Land prints.
What are Polaroid Land prints? Prints from a Polaroid Land camera. What's a Polaroid Land camera? Cameras manufactured by Polaroid between 1947 and 1983. Why were they called Land cameras? They were named after Edwin Land. Who was Edwin Land, and why are you dragging this out? Ok, ok. Edwin Land was the founder of Polaroid Corporation (1937) and he invented the Land camera. Polaroid dropped the name "Land" from their cameras after Edwin Land retired in 1982 after spending over 40 years as the chief executive of the company. (Read his bio on Wikipedia. He was quite the scientist/inventor/visionary.)
Fun Facts: Edwin Land founded Polaroid after attending Harvard for one year. Bill Gates founded Microsoft after attending Harvard for two years. Mark Zuckerberg launched Facebook shortly before dropping out of Harvard during his sophomore year.
Diary entry for September 25, 1967:
Went to doctor. Infection is fine, but I had to take a flu shot. So did David Wayne. Then David Wayne and I went to see where Dave worked. That night ate supper at Sizzler. The food was good. David Wayne had another nightmare at night.
Incidentally, Dad worked at Pacific Employers Insurance Company which was located at 4050 Wilshire Boulevard, at the corner of Wilshire and South Norton Avenue. It was 1.5 miles from our apartment, so about a 30-minute walk which Mom mentioned doing earlier during our stay. Based on some pictures in the photo album it was about a ten-story building.
At historicaerials dot com the building is still there in 2004, but it's a construction site in 2005 for what is there now, which is Wilshire Park Elementary School.
Hmmm, another nightmare for me. I don't think I ever heard about these, and I definitely don't remember having nightmares, so I guess I stopped having them soon after this.
Another fancy night out on the town at Sizzler. Mom didn't complain this time. Maybe the pregnancy is affecting her appetite.
Diary entry for September 24, 1967:
We bought more film then went to La Brea Tar Pits and took pictures. Then we drove to Santa Monica Beach and took more pictures. Came home and took more pictures to send to family.
Based on the clothing worn by me and my parents it looks like seven pictures from today's trips to La Brea Tar Pits and Santa Monica Beach made it into the photo album, and I have already posted two of them. Those two were posted on August 28, and they are both from La Brea Tar Pits. One was just a lake of tar with an elephant statue in the background, and the other one was the picture of me and Mom, with Mom's awesome hairdo. Here is the one of me and Mom to refresh your memory. You'll need this for reference later.
Luckily for you loyal readers I am in all five of the remaining pictures from this day, so you get to see them all. We'll start with the La Brea Tar Pits series since we went there first, and then we'll look at the ones from Santa Monica Beach.
Here is another picture of me and Mom at La Brea Tar Pits, obviously in the same outfits as the previous photo.
I like to zoom in on these photos to look for interesting details. In the upper left of this photo you'll see what I'm calling a grassy knoll (hey, I'm from Dallas). If you zoom in on that area you'll see four well-dressed people sitting on a bench.
Why is that bench positioned such that the tree is right in front of it?
Next up is a picture of me and Dad at La Brea Tar Pits.
When I zoomed in on this one the detail I noticed was the cigarette in Dad's right hand.
I don't think Dad put quite as much effort as Mom did into dressing up for Picture Day.
Now let's go to Santa Monica Beach, 45 minutes away if you take Wilshire Blvd. First up is me in a tree.
If you look closely you may notice that I'm not smiling in that one like I am in the others. I think I was in a bit of a precarious position, barely keeping myself from falling forward with both of my arms fully extended and my right arm slightly behind me. Poor kid.
"Oh please, hurry up and take the picture so I can get down from here."
Also, how in the heck did my left sock get so dirty, and in that pattern? It wasn't that dirty in the pictures from La Brea Tar Pits.
Next is a picture of me and Dad with the beach in the background.
For those of you playing "Where's the cigarette?" it's in Dad's left hand this time.
Last is a picture of me and Mom with the beach in the background, probably only a few yards from where Dad and I were standing.
Before moving forward, let's take another look at the first picture of this post, the closeup of me and Mom at La Brea Tar Pits taken earlier that same day.
Now look at the beach photo of me and Mom again. Notice anything different? I'll zoom in to show you my favorite part of the beach photo. Look at Mom's hair and her body language.
That cracked me up when I first noticed it. I can just imagine her writing letters in the morning, then we had lunch, then she got dressed up and spent who knows how long doing her hair and makeup before we went to La Brea Tar Pits. Then we spent who knows how long looking for good picture spots, then we drove 45 minutes to Santa Monica Beach and spent who knows how long looking for good picture spots there. The darkness of the beach photos may or may not have been due to the time of day, but she was definitely not her perky made-up self in that last picture. This is one of those times where I would love to be able to ask her "What were you thinking while Dad was taking this picture?" Here's my guess: "I'm pregnant, my back hurts from standing for pictures all day, my hair's a mess due to this wind, and it's getting dark. I want to go home."
Letter postmarked September 24, 1967:
The CCZCC now stands at 2.
Today's letter is being posted before today's diary entry. You'll see why at the end.
"Dear Mother and Mike,"
"Sounds like you both are busy and I do feel sorry for you. I wish I had more to do so I wouldn't have any time to feel sick. I don't actually get sick in the mornings, but I have to eat crackers and lie very still. My back hurts at night and I usually stay on David Wayne's little bed and watch TV."
[I think I've mentioned it before, but my little bed was a folding metal cot. It will make an appearance in at least one upcoming photo. I can't imagine why a pregnant person with a sore back would find it comfortable.]
"I'm glad your trip on the plane was good. Very glad that Mike took care of things so well during your absence."
"I just don't know what to make about Mrs. Hall. Mike, what are you doing up there at school to get in bad with her? I was her pet. You step lightly around that old witch, she has a lot of influence in that school, or she did. Of course, she hasn't got a brain in her head and she's very moody. If you're going to be a politician, you will meet a lot of the Mrs. Halls so learn how to handle her type. But never sacrifice what is right just to please - just make her think you are."
[I looked up Mrs. Hall in Mom's high school yearbook. She was the Speech and Drama teacher, and I'm pretty sure Mom was in plays in high school. My uncle doesn't remember exactly what his issue was with Mrs. Hall. Perhaps he was more focused on his political career than his acting career.]
[Politician? Uncle Mike? I asked him about that, and there's more to it than just his own political aspirations at the time. I'll reveal just part of his response here: He wore a coat and tie to school every day his senior year of high school.]
"David Wayne is completely in charge (so he thinks, anyway) of taking care of Snappy. He feeds, changes water, and puts in new gravel. He's also got the duty of putting it in the sack - her or his home when we are gone."
[What a responsible young man I was.]
"Ed Kubala and family from Austin have been vacationing here this week. We have enjoyed seeing familiar faces and talking about people we all know. (Excuse my writing this morning - I'm sorta shaky.) David Wayne was at a total loss of how to play with their children for about an hour. Finally, he got okay and really enjoyed them. I guess he's just forgotten how to act with other children."
[Now I have something to blame my lack of social skills on: A few months of isolation from my peer group at the age of five.]
[Since this is the last mention of this visit by the Kubalas, I'll tell something else interesting about them. As I mentioned before, although they lived in Austin and we lived in the Dallas area, we would see Ed from time to time when he was in Dallas on business, and I'm pretty sure Dad would visit them when he was in Austin. The two couples remained friends through the years, and the last time they were all together was at a career development seminar Dad and Ed attended in Portland, Oregon in July of 1991 (bringing the wives along), since Dad died while traveling back from that conference at the age of 53. Ed was so torn up over my dad's death that he couldn't attend the funeral.]
[Fast forward to early 2009 and Ed's wife Joyce passes away. Some time after that Ed finds a way to contact Mom and says he and Joyce already had plans to make their annual trip to Hawaii in May, and would Mom like to join him. Mom said yes because she loved to travel, and over the next four years the two of them traveled the world together to more places than any of us can remember, and essentially became a part of each other's families until Ed passed away in 2013.]
"David Wayne had a terrible nightmare Wednesday night which scared us to death. He woke us both up about 3 AM. When we ran into the living room, he was out of bed, had the front door open (as far as he could with the night chain), and he practically had the night latch pulled off its hinges. It took me about an hour to get him settled down and back to sleep."
[Yikes. I bet they made darn sure that night chain was on before going to bed every night after that.]
"He said he had dreamed about monsters. He hadn't watched any television that day as we had the Kubala children during the day and that night we had all gone out to a Shakey's to eat supper. We had to laugh the next day at him though. I had taken him into our room after the dream and Dave and I both rubbed his back and talked to him. The next day he said, "I couldn't go back to sleep because of that snoring daddy."
[If only the movie "Monsters, Inc." had been released back then . . .]
"I better close for now and get dressed. I am going to make Dave take us somewhere today - I feel like the walls are closing in on me. Take care of yourselves and Taffy."
[This letter does indeed have a postmark date of September 24, 1967, so Mom apparently wrote it Sunday morning and got it in the mailbox the same day. Today's diary entry will tell us if Mom was successful at getting out of the house.]
"Love,
Linda"
[Edited 9-25-17: Clarified the location of the career development seminar.]
Diary entry for September 23, 1967:
Stayed home most of day. We bought a Polaroid camera on the corner of Hollywood and Vine. Ed and Joyce, Jimmy H. and Marsha came by before they went to ball game. We took pictures.
As Mom mentioned in the September 19 letter, Dad wanted to buy a Polaroid camera due to a lack of success taking photos up to this point. Hopefully this one was purchased at a retail establishment at the corner of Hollywood and Vine and not from some street vendor. (Hey, wanna buy a camera?) We can expect lots of pictures going forward, but unfortunately we don't have any of today's visitors for some reason.
Now we know why Ed and Joyce Kubala were in town this week. It was to attend the Texas vs. USC football game. Both teams were ranked in the top 10, and USC won 17-13. (The offensive coordinator for Texas was future head coach Fred Akers.) Texas finished the season third in the Southwest Conference. USC, on the other hand, went on to be consensus national champions, no doubt helped along the way by a junior running back named O. J. Simpson.
Diary entry for September 22, 1967:
Stayed home and waited on Kubalas, but they never came. Went to grocery store.
You'd think they could have at least sent a text saying they weren't coming, right? Oh, wait, this was way before texting, cell phones, and all that instant communication we take for granted today. What did you do back in the day when plans changed after you left your house and you needed to let somebody know? I guess you looked for a pay phone and hoped the person you were trying to reach was at home. (Some of you youngsters out there may have to google "pay phone.")
Here's another interesting story about Mom and Dad's friends, Ed and Joyce Kubala. In 1980 I started attending The University of Texas at Austin, majoring in electrical engineering. I had been awarded a small academic scholarship from the College of Engineering, something like $500 per semester, which easily covered my tuition and books back then. (A $20 college textbook was considered expensive in 1980.) The only stipulations for keeping that scholarship were that I stay in the College of Engineering and maintain some minimum GPA like 3.0 or 3.25 (on a 4.0 scale), which should have been no problem for me given my grades in high school. Well, college isn't high school. I did fine my first semester but my grades pretty much dropped like a rock my second semester, only in part due to the difficulty of the courses I took. So at some point during my sophomore year I received a letter from Dr. J. P. Lamb, the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs of the College of Engineering, informing me that I had lost my scholarship. Well, darn. Nobody's fault but my own.
I kept that letter in my folder of semi-important papers that documented my high school and college scholastic career, and many years later I ran across it again and noticed the following below the signature:
JPL/jk
For those of you unfamiliar with business correspondence, that's called the identification initials and is used when someone such as an administrative assistant prepares a letter for the actual sender. The three uppercase letters are the initials of the person sending the letter, and the two lowercase letters are the initials of the person who prepared the letter. So in this case "JPL" is the initials of Dr. Lamb, but who was "jk" and why does it matter? Well, "jk" was Joyce Kubala. Yep, she worked for Dr. Lamb in the College of Engineering and prepared the letter informing me I had lost my scholarship. Small world, eh?
Diary entry for September 21, 1967:
Stayed home today. I didn't feel well. I did wash clothes.
Too much pizza at Shakey's last night?
The Wayback Time Machine is in the shop for repairs so it's not available for any trips at the moment. But don't worry, it will be back.
Diary entry for September 20, 1967:
Ed and Joyce brought kids over in PM and they stayed with me. David Wayne had a hard time playing with them. We all ate at Shakey's that night. David Wayne and Stephen had a lot of fun playing player piano.
Ed and Joyce had two children, Stephen and Stephanie. Stephen is about four years older than I am and Stephanie is a little older than Stephen. It sounds like I wasn't a great playmate at first with the older kids, but then once we got to Shakey's we had fun.
For those of you who don't know, Shakey's Pizza Parlor is a pizza place with sort of an old time Dixieland feel. I remember going to one in the Dallas area in the 1970s, and as I recall it had lots of games and a player piano playing ragtime music. Think of it as a Chuck E. Cheese geared toward older kids, but with good pizza. The pizza had a distinctive flavor I really miss. I think it was the cheese combination, because I've had some pizza in recent years, such as a three-cheese combination, that reminds me of Shakey's pizza. Unless you live near the west coast of the US, you'll need to go to Alabama, Hawaii, or Mexico City to find a Shakey's today.
Letter postmarked September 19, 1967:
This envelope did have a zip code, so the CCZCC now stands at 1.
"Dear Mother and Mike,
"I guess you both are back in the swing of things - school and workwise that is. Mike, did you get your schedule worked out to your satisfaction? Did Mike get a job with the credit union?"
"Saturday we got sort of a chain letter from Wayne, Linda and Bernie. Wayne finally got his pickup and I would imagine he's just like a kid with a new toy. From Linda's accounts of Wayne's spending on the farm and the new house, I can tell that he and Dave have reacted the same way towards a baby. Dave told me Saturday that we were going to get a Polaroid camera this week. Reason? I took two rolls of colored film - Disneyland and other places - and we got four pictures developed."
[Regarding what sounds like an increase in spending, in Dad's binder of pay stubs and expense reports there is a letter indicating he got a raise September 1. So that might explain his willingness to splurge on a new camera.]
[If only four pictures were developed up to this point, I'm guessing some of the ones I've posted from the photo album were taken after the Polaroid camera was purchased. I've noticed there are two different sizes of prints, so it might be easy to tell for sure which are the early ones. The two of me and my grandmother were obviously taken before this Polaroid camera was purchased.]
"We haven't done much since you left. Friday, David Wayne and I went to the La Brea Tar Pits. The pits were interesting, but the museum was strictly an art museum and not for us. After I have been so careful about _not_ taking David Wayne to picture shows that aren't fit, I expose him to art - nude paintings, nude statues, etc.! It only took a few minutes for me to find out I was in the wrong place with a five-year-old. A lady at the museum told me the bones of dinosaurs were at another museum 7-1/2 miles away. Figures. Surely one wouldn't think to keep the bones where they were found. Since I had told David Wayne we would see dinosaurs there was little I could do but drive there. I carefully followed the map the lady had given me and we did get there. But not before going ten blocks through a "Watts" area. That lady's great-grandfather must have been a general in the Northern army!"
[Now we know why Mom remarked in her diary entry that she didn't find the art museum interesting. I wonder if five-year-old me found it a little too interesting?]
[Now we also know a bit more about how Mom ended up driving through Watts that day. She hadn't planned on going to the Natural History Museum when we left the apartment so she had to follow a map she had just picked up at the art museum.]
"I was fairly shook up when we arrived, but the museum was great. There are four floors and we only saw a part of the first floor - we can spend a week there. Going home I took another route - on the freeway. At home, I literally fell on the bed for two hours and thanked God for my deliverance."
"Saturday Dave watched a game on television. That night we ate Mexican food on Olvera Street. Dave ate his food, all that I left, and all that David Wayne left - then he came home and got sick. He won't be wanting Mexican food for a looong time. Do you remember me commenting on the food at that restaurant being so reasonable? Well! They triple the price at night. It cost $9 for the three of us to eat! No wonder Dave had to eat all the food."
[Like I said before, Dad liked his Mexican food. That $9 in 1967 would be worth over $65 today, so I'm sure he didn't want to waste any of that food.]
"Sunday we just stayed home and relaxed. I was thankful for the change in pace and so were the boys."
"Monday really turned out to be _one_ day. Dave came home at his usual 5 o'clock. I had just walked back to the bedroom with him when he ran to the window and looked out. Then - just a second or two [later] - the floor of the apartment shook and lamps did a dance on their tables. I ran to the window and there it was - a woman had run into our apartment house! The car bounced off the wall and back onto the street and she was getting out (car still moving). Her car hit another car parked in front of the kindergarten. She got out of the car - dropping her wig on the street - and started walking down the street. Her head was cut and her nose was bleeding. We were out front by then and heard a man ask if he could help her. She replied, "Leave me alone," and she kept walking. Everyone around thought she was calling the police, but she just kept walking to the next block!"
[I wonder if Mom initially thought it was an earthquake?]
"The manager called the police when we saw that she had no intention of doing so. Here's what happened:"
[After seeing that drawing I think Dad must have heard the initial impact at location 1, which is why he ran to the window and looked out. I bet he was glad the car turned and hit the building instead of going a little further and hitting our car.]
"All of this in 5 o'clock traffic! The police came and then a wrecker to move it out of the street. Poor stupid police! They didn't know what to do - the driver of the illegally parked car was nowhere to be found, the owner of the car in front of the kindergarten wouldn't be home for another hour, and the woman that hit everything had just disappeared. Dave and I gave a description of what we saw. I told the police what she was wearing, how tall, etc. I doubt that they will pay much attention to what I said because when they asked for my name, address, and age I just froze and I told them I was 27. Dave said 26 and the policeman just looked at me and shook his head. They were confused enough and here was a woman giving her age as _older_ instead of _younger_! It turned out with the car being hauled off, the police getting woman's name from letters in car, (but not the woman) and us having supper at 7:30."
[Wow, quite the drama-filled evening on Normandie Avenue. I guess crazy people have been around for a long time.]
"This turned into a real catalog. We are all just fine, except now I'm not only afraid to drive but walk for fear of being run over on the sidewalk. Snappy is doing fine. I don't know which David gets more pleasure from the turtle."
"Take care of yourselves and write as often as you can."
"Love,
Linda"
Diary entry for September 19, 1967:
Wrote letters in the AM and then slept in the PM. Ed and Joyce Kubala came at night. We enjoyed visiting with them.
This is pretty neat for many reasons. Ed Kubala was a coworker of my dad's at the Texas State Board of Insurance. He and his wife Joyce lived in Austin, and I assume Dad met Ed when he started working for the Board of Insurance there in the early 1960s. I don't remember Ed from when we lived in Los Angeles, but I do remember him visiting us from time to time while I was growing up in the 1970s, and my parents remained friends with them until my dad died in 1991. Ed was always a neat guy to have around. I could write several interesting anecdotes about him that would get us off track, but here's one.
Ed had a glass eye. It wasn't terribly obvious unless you were really close to him and looking him in the eyes, especially since he wore glasses. Whenever the subject of Ed's glass eye would come up (not while Ed was around) and someone would ask which eye was the glass eye, I always knew the answer because I had an easy way to remember it. Would you like to know how? Dad said he and Ed used to travel together via automobile, probably making trips to examine small insurance companies located in small Texas towns. (The aforementioned burial runs.) Dad said it was somewhat unsettling, especially the first time it happened, when Ed was driving and during a lull in the conversation Dad would glance over from the passenger seat and see Ed's glass eye staring up at the ceiling instead of straight ahead at the road. That's how I knew Ed's glass eye was his right eye.
Diary entry for September 18, 1967:
I felt bad today. David Wayne and I went to grocery store. Wrote letters.
Since there's not much to talk about once again, we'll take another trip in the Wayback Time Machine. Today we'll revisit the August 27, 1967 diary entry, where the bank collection grows by not one but two additional banks. Here is a picture of the Buddha bank (purchased at Japanese Deer Park) holding the obligatory quarter between his toes.
You can't really tell due to how out of focus that picture is, but this one is ceramic with a rough finish instead of smooth like most of the others. In the bottom right of the photo you can see just a bit of a sticker that's coming off. That sticker says "HOTEI Brings You Luck." Hotei (aka Budai or Pu-Tai) is often mistaken for Guatama Buddha (the real Buddha on whose teachings Buddhism was founded). So it is often called the Fat Buddha in the west.
The other bank purchased that day was this covered wagon from Knott's Berry Farm.
This one is smooth ceramic with some really nice detail. Whoever painted the words on this one certainly could have taken lessons from the person who painted "Marineland" on the whale bank.
Diary entry for September 17, 1967:
We stayed home all day. Nobody felt very good.
It sounds like that Mexican food didn't sit well with any of us.
Since there's not much to talk about with regard to today's diary entry, let's jump in the Wayback Time Machine and see where it takes us. Today we'll go back to the letter postmarked August 23, 1967. In addition to the details about our trip to Marineland, this letter contains the first mention of the bank collection. The second bank that was purchased was a whale from Marineland, shown in the photo below holding the obligatory quarter in its mouth and looking very happy.
This bank is smooth glazed ceramic and is in good shape, although I think the clear coat has started to wear off the tail because the ends of both flukes feel rougher than the rest of the whale. It feels like the word "Marineland" was painted over the clear coat, but surprisingly it has not worn off.
Letter postmarked September 16, 1967 (dated "Friday"):
This letter had no zip code. The CCZCC (Consecutive Correct Zip Codes Counter) is reset to zero. :-(
"Dear Mother,"
[Once again she forgot all about her little brother in the salutation.]
"We all enjoyed your visit so much that things have really been dull without you. At the airport we watched until the airplane took off. David Wayne was very good on the drive home and re-hashed all we had done. Catastrophe on reaching home - the turtle was gone! We searched everywhere and after 30 minutes found him in the stack of papers. Now, when we leave the apartment and at night we put the bowl in a paper sack. This is our turtle house."
[Here's the drawing of the turtle house she included in the letter. Now we know the turtle's name is Snappy. I guess those circles at the bottom of the sack are air holes. Hopefully they aren't big enough for Snappy to crawl through.]
"Dave was very unhappy at first with the newest addition to the family, but now he watches him and talks to him. David Wayne places the turtle in front of the TV so he (the turtle) can watch and not get bored."
[It doesn't surprise me that Dad talked to the turtle. He talked to all of our pets while we were growing up, especially the cats.]
[Like I mentioned a few days ago, let's hope I didn't let Snappy watch "The Great Escape" on TV.]
"We just hope someone was at the airport to meet you. Mike called Dave and asked him if _you_ had made arrangements with Wayne. Dave said he nearly fell out of his chair because he understood from Mike's letter that arrangements with Wayne were all fixed. I do hope you weren't stranded. Poor Dave, I bet he won't even talk on the phone any more - first my call about the baby and then Mike!"
["What . . . we got here . . . is a failure to communicate."]
"Thursday I had my hair cut. My operator offered to cut David Wayne's hair free. He says - hold on to your seat - that _my_ son is the best behaved child he ever saw in a beauty shop. He really was good. He is also going to lend me a card - a special club deal - to get 15 tickets at Disneyland for $4. The 15 tickets are good for any ride and you don't have A, B, C, D and E tickets."
[I'm guessing all that time I spent in my grandfather's barber shop made me all the more interested in what was going on at Mom's beauty shop. Oooh, we might be headed back to Disneyland!]
"Dave was really interested about Farmer's Market. I think we will probably go Saturday. We are going to send some more goodies. Gary, my beauty operator, said you can haggle down the prices in most of the stores. Also, he said that you could see many movie stars shopping there."
"I just checked the mail for today and I am very depressed - no letter. This makes three days in a row. Has everybody forgotten us? Is nobody excited about our baby?"
[Uh oh, Mom's already getting impatient for some correspondence from back home.]
"I will close for now. Write soon and put a fire under everyone else."
"Love,
Linda"
"P. S. - I feel great physically."
