September 24, 1967: Political nightmare

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.]