December 26, 1967: Doggone it!

Letter postmarked December 28, 1967 (dated December 26) (Part 3):

Here's Part 3 of the letter Mom started writing the day after Christmas in 1967. Today we'll cover late Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Hartford left early Sunday night so we could put David Wayne to bed and get started on our construction work. We let David Wayne open one gift before going to bed and he chose the Disneyland game. We played it with him and then sent him and the pup to the bedroom - we got no static and he fell asleep quickly. Dave and I leisurely drank coffee, rested, and talked before we began fixing the toys. We got to bed at 3 AM Christmas Eve - talk about tired . . . but neither of us could sleep as we were just too excited. Actually, the toys were not hard to put together, but Dave played with the Johnny Lunar set until I just knew the batteries would go out. We had more fun playing with the toys than David Wayne did the next day.

[Here's a picture of Dad playing with my Johnny Astro Space Control Center very early on Christmas morning.]

[Yes, Dad is smoking a cigar in that picture. Also note that Mom got a picture of the balloon in flight.]

[Also, since I haven't posted it on the blog yet (but I have posted it on Facebook), here is a picture of the Christmas tree ornament that's a picture of me on Santa's lap taken at Santa's Village in October. This is the photo I mentioned in the discussion of the October 17, 1967 letter. It's mounted on a piece of particle board.]

We were all up about 7 o'clock Christmas morning and David Wayne just couldn't have been more thrilled and excited. He opened his stocking first and it was jammed full of little toys. I even had a little net stocking for the puppy with a rubber ball in it. We took as many pictures as we could get David Wayne still for, and we plan on sending some to everyone if we can bear to part with them. It would take me three letters to list all the things he got and I couldn't describe in three letters his happiness (or ours either!)

[Here are some pictures from Christmas Day. First is me and Dad standing with our stockings. I remember helping Mom put our names on those stockings with glue and glitter.]

[Here is me giving Dad the gift I made for him with Suzie Dirr's assistance.]

[That gift was a box for knickknacks made from a cigar box covered with a collage of colored paper and pictures cut out of magazines. Dad kept it in his desk at home until he died, and Mom kept it in that desk until she died. I have it now in a larger box of keepsakes of Dad's. Here's a picture with the lid propped open.]

[Here is me giving Mom the gift I made for her. It was a candle centerpiece. I don't have a great picture of it, although it can be seen in a picture of me and Dad eating leftovers on Christmas Day. Sadly, the candle centerpiece is long gone as far as I know.]

[Finally, here's a picture of me with my Johnny Astro Space Control Center and some other Christmas gifts.]

Christmas morning and early afternoon were just great, but were we tired early that night. All of us needed to get to bed and David Wayne was even willing, but . . . we had to stay up so we could play taxi cab for the Dirrs again. David Wayne was cross and fussy and he just cried from being worn out, and David and I weren't much better. Dave pleaded with me to go on to bed, but I had found a shorter (about half the time) way to the airport that he didn't know. And, of course, I couldn't remember street names so I could explain the way to him. So at 10 o'clock we loaded into the car and fought traffic, drunk drivers (only 1000 DWI tickets in L. A. on Monday night), a fussy little boy, and a wiggly puppy.

[This sounds awesome, leaving for the airport at 10 PM with an exhausted five-year-old kid and a puppy that isn't housebroken. What could go wrong?]

NOW! Here was the real blow . . . Gene had told us not once, but several times that his airplane got in at 10:33 PM. On arriving at the airport, we discovered that the damn nut had told us wrong and it wasn't due until 11:33 PM. We literally sat there and fumed for one _long_ solid hour. We didn't want to take the puppy to the airport, but we wanted to get rid of it (more about that later) and them as quickly as possible. If the airplane had gotten there at the time Gene had said it would, the pup wouldn't have been in the car more than 5 minutes, but as it turned out, well, if that puppy had chewed up or wet on anything, Dave would have gone berserk! David Wayne went to sleep on the way home from the airport, but Dave and I were so mad when we got home, we couldn't go to sleep even as tired as we were.

Now, to fill you in on the puppy trouble. Firstly, the puppy isn't housebroken and we now have little circles all over our rug. Putting paper down didn't help and she didn't even have the courtesy of having a "special" place - just everywhere. Secondly, we did try to take her outside for her big business, but the apartment owners up and down the street are raising cain about all the dogs using their LAWNS. (You remember those 2 x 2 splotches of green that you saw occasionally out here.) So when I did catch her in time and took her outside, I had to carry paper towels with me, pick the mess up, and then deposit it in the trash cans. but that did not happen often as I usually couldn't get her outside in time. Thirdly, we had to let her sleep in bed with David Wayne because she whined and scratched on the bathroom door all night. Then she would wake him up _early_ every morning and he just flat missed a lot of sleep. Fourthly, she is going through the chewing stage - we have one living room chair with the corner chewed, the underneath side of the divan will have to be replaced, and she even enjoyed chewing up pieces of the rug. I can't recall how many messes of chewed up bits and pieces of things I had to clean after.

[When Mom wrote that we'd be keeping this puppy while the Dirrs were gone I was hoping she would give us a full report of how bad it turned out. She did not disappoint. It was even worse than I was expecting. But wait, there's more!]

The poor little pup was nearly killed Christmas night. The Jennings sent me a beautiful dress for Christmas. When I tried it on, it was too long. Dave just loved the dress and I pinned up the hem to show him that I could take it up. As I walked out of the bedroom, the puppy jumped up and one of her toenails caught in the dress - a big hole right in the front of the dress and no way in the world to fix it as it is one of those no-iron jersey dresses. I just cried and Dave just lost control. Thank goodness David Wayne thought Daddy was playing chase with the puppy. You know, Dave and I both are dog lovers, but we had just had too much trouble and a ruined Christmas dress is nothing to laugh about.

[Man, oh, man, I bet Dad did lose control when that happened. It sounds like I almost got to witness some animal cruelty. I bet Mom had to calm him down to keep him from catching and attacking the dog.]

I suppose you're wondering how the Dirrs reacted to all this news - they laughed! I received a not very convincing "I'm sorry" from Suzie and that's all. My calm, easy going, congenial husband has turned into a raving maniac at the mention of their names. By the way, David Wayne was the one who told them about the dress, chair, etc.

[Well, it seems as though recent events have put a bit of a strain on the relationship between these two couples. It will be interesting to see what happens going forward.]

[This concludes Part 3 of this letter.]