Final Thoughts

Unless I think of something else, this will be my last post for the Letters from Linda blog. I'd like to thank those of you who joined me on this trip down Memory Lane in 2017 and 2018, and I'd also like to thank those of you reading this in the future, whether I'm still around or not. Hopefully you found some entertaining, informative, educational and enlightening bits here and there.
I'm sure I got more out of this exercise than anyone else, since I was there as these events unfolded. I was surprised at some things I did not remember at all, such as my grandmother's visit. But I was pleased that Mom wrote about several events I did remember, such as my big scare at Universal City Studios, to reassure me that my recollections were fairly accurate. It was nice to get her perspective on those events near the time they occurred, and it was also good to have some questions answered, such as how we really ended up driving through Watts. (I had always thought Mom simply got lost one day.)
Some interesting things I learned which I don't recall Mom ever talking about over the years were the unexpected length of our stay in L. A. through Christmas, and the back and forth nature of deciding whether Mom and I were going to fly back to Texas or ride back with Dad. The twin scare was also news to me, as it was to my sister Laura. The ups and downs of Mom and Dad's friendship with the Dirrs was also news to me and quite interesting to follow as things unfolded.
I gained a lot of insight into what was going on with the extended family at the time, some of which I knew about and some of which was definitely news to me as I went through the letters. It was interesting reading about Mom and Dad's perspectives on all of that family drama, too. Some of that was published and some was redacted since there's no need to share 50-year-old dirty laundry with the world in most cases.
It was certainly interesting to see how Mom and Dad dealt with the cultural changes as a result of moving from Texas to the west coast, and how things fit into the history of 1967-68. But in the big scheme of things, all of that eventually faded into the background. When you step back and take a look, everything more or less revolved around life in our apartment, Dad going to work every day, Mom trying to keep a curious, bug-collecting, five-year-old boy entertained, and the friends and visitors we interacted with while living in Los Angeles. Normal stuff, in other words.
The best thing of all for me, I think, was getting to know my younger parents a little better. You might think you know your parents because you grew up with them, and then when you become an adult you might think you know them because you're an adult now, too. But they were different people back when you were a young child, navigating their way through a different world, trying to balance being a parent with all the other responsibilities of adulthood. On the one hand I was surprised at some things I learned about both of my parents, and on the other hand some things fit perfectly with the parents I knew. There were also a few enlightening moments that explained some things I had never really understood until I read these letters.
I guess Mom's diary and letters turned out to be a way for her to communicate posthumously and somewhat intimately to future generations. I have no idea if that was what my grandmother intended when she saved the letters, or if that's what my mother intended when she saved them after my grandmother died. But I know I am very fortunate to have them and I'm glad I took the time to go through them. I suppose my blogging about this experience will be a way for me to communicate to future generations as well, someday posthumously.
So if you're fortunate enough to have one or more parents around, I highly recommend scheduling some time with them to talk about what they were doing before you were born and when you were very young. Don't just ask them to write it all down, because they probably won't. Sit down and have face to face conversations about it. Listen to their stories. You'll be glad you did, and some day you'll regret it if you don't.
Along those same lines, if you aren't keeping a diary or journal of some sort, start one. You don't even need to buy anything since you can do it online and keep it private. However you do it, just make sure someone will be able to get to it when you can't some day. Put boring stuff in there, thoughts about family events, thoughts about world events, whatever. Go back and make entries about major events such as where you were on 9-11, how insecure you were in high school, big mistakes you've made, etc. You'll be glad you did, and some day someone else will be gladder.
In closing, I'd like to say thanks to Mom and Dad for the wonderful time in Los Angeles, thanks to Mom for keeping a diary for awhile and writing the letters back home, and thanks to Nana for keeping those letters. And thanks again to you for reading some or all of this, whoever you are.

Banks for the memories (alternately: Oh Mickey, you're so fine)

One aspect of our stay in Los Angeles that gradually faded away over time was the various banks my parents got for me as souvenirs. I think only 12 banks in total were mentioned, with the last one being the one purchased in Chinatown in early December of 1967. I don't really know how many banks in total were obtained in Los Angeles or how many banks were added to my collection after we returned to Texas and the bank collection grew, but here are pictures of the ones I think were obtained in Los Angeles that were not mentioned in the letters. To avoid some repetition, all of these banks are, of course, pictured with the obligatory quarter for scale. First up is a bank bank, from California Federal Savings and Loan Association on Wilshire Blvd.

This is just a cardboard can with metal top and bottom. The partially obscured slogan on the front is: "The betterment of people is our billion-dollar business."

The other side of the bank has a caricature of an old prospector saying "Saving pennies makes dollars," and below that is the suggestion to "consult your telephone directory for our nearest office." ("Telephone directory" is another term for "phone book." Some of you may have to look that up.) Next is another bank bank, this time from Westdale Savings and Loan Association in Los Angeles. This one is all plastic and really is a piggy bank.

The next one is a ceramic bank made to look like the end of a loaf of bread, in both shape and color.

If there was any doubt as to what it is supposed to be, the word "BREAD" is painted on the top. I have no idea where this bank came from. Next is a ceramic bank with the words "LI'L DEVIL BANK" painted on the front. Again, I have no idea where this one came from. I was such a well-behaved child I really have no idea why that bank is even part of the collection.

Next is a very colorful ceramic Indian child. I don't know where this one came from, but Knott's Berry Farm would be a reasonable guess.

Next is a Jungle Book bank featuring Shere Khan and Mowgli.

The front of this one has a sticker indicating it came from Grauman's Chinese Theater in Hollywood, so I probably got this bank when Mom and I saw the movie there with Suzie Dirr in November of 1967, shortly after it was released. Next is a souvenir that is not a bank, but it's about the same size. It's a small beer stein. There is no indication of where it is from but my guess would be Busch Gardens.

Another non-bank souvenir is this little brown jug of Calico Corn, which is probably from Calico Ghost Town. I don't think there was any Calico corn in the jug when it was purchased.

Next up is one of the most interesting banks in the collection, mainly because it requires batteries and something really cool happens when you give it money.

As you can see, it's a haunted house. The sides are thin sheet metal and the rest of the house is plastic. (Notice the nice detail of overlapping shingles on the roof.) I don't know for certain if we got this one in Los Angeles, but if we did I'm surprised it wasn't mentioned in any of the letters. Here's how it works. You can see in this picture that the front doors are partially open. Normally those doors are fully closed. You can also see two small circles on the front porch. Those circles are actually electrical contacts, and when you put a penny on the front porch, the penny completes a circuit which causes a ghost-like figure to come forward from within the house, pushing the front doors open. The base this figure is on moves over the penny and when it withdraws back into the house it takes the penny with it and the doors close. You can't see it in this picture, but there is also a light over the front doors that blinks while the ghost-like figure is outside. I haven't had batteries in it in several years, and it has suffered in the past from battery leakage, but I'll see if I can get it working before Halloween this year. Last but not least is the most special bank of them all. This one was mentioned in the letters and at the time I said it deserved its own blog post. But naturally I never got around to doing that so I'll include the story about this bank here. This is the Mickey Mouse bank I got at Disneyland on September 9, 1967. You may have noticed him in the background of some of the pictures taken around Christmas 1967, but here are pictures of the front and back of the bank all by itself. You may have to look closely to find the obligatory quarter for scale.

Yes, with a height of slightly under 19 inches, Mickey Mouse is the tallest bank in the collection. Mickey himself is about 16 inches tall and he's standing on a treasure chest about 3 inches tall.

The paint has gotten scratched up over the years, but other than a slightly pushed in nose it's in good shape.

In this picture of the bottom of the bank you can see that it was made by Transogram (maker of Tiddledy Winks) and cost $2.25 plus tax in 1967. You can also see where it says "Cut To Open," which we did. More on that in a bit. This bank is made from a thick, rigid plastic and it is completely hollow inside, which means it can hold a lot of coins. How many? Let's find out. At some point during our stay in Los Angeles or shortly after we returned to Texas, I started putting pennies in the Mickey Mouse bank. I assume these pennies just came from Mom and Dad's spare change. Since you had to cut open the bottom of the bank to get the money out, the money stayed in there. Fast forward a couple of years to when I was seven years old and in the second grade, and Mom and Dad were given a sales pitch for World Book encyclopedias. You may recall that I was quite the curious five-year-old when we were in L. A., so much so that Mom decided to purchase a geography book to help her answer the questions I came up with after I was given a globe. I assume my curiosity did not fade much over the next two years, and I know my grades in school were good, so Mom and Dad probably felt like a set of encyclopedias was a worthwhile investment that would allow me to look up the answers to all my questions my darn self. I don't know for sure what discussions took place, if any, but it was decided that the money in the Mickey Mouse bank would be used for the down payment on the set of World Book encyclopedias, and my savings rate went into high gear. I'm sure I was more than happy to donate those funds to get a set of encyclopedias since I didn't have much of a concept of money at the time anyway. I assume I knew what an encyclopedia was because my maternal grandmother in Denton had a set. [Fun fact: A few years later, my paternal grandmother started selling World Book encyclopedias.] At some point, many months after the original sales pitch for the encyclopedias, Mickey's bottom was cut open (ewwwww), and for the next several days or weeks, Mom and I spent a lot of time at the kitchen table counting pennies and rolling them into 50-cent paper rolls. I think the grand total when we got finished was around $27. Well, we got the encyclopedias, and the sales rep thought the story of how I saved up the money for the down payment would make a good story for the World Book company newsletter. So about a week after the encyclopedias were delivered, the sales rep came by the house with a photographer to take pictures for the story. And here is the clipping with that story from the World Book company newsletter.

The caption of that picture in the article is:

Third-grader David Jennings holds the Mickey Mouse bank which held most of the $30 in pennies he saved for a down payment on World Book. Representative Elisa Turner of the Dallas (Tex.) Branch made the demonstration to David's parents. Here's the text of the article: ===== He's banking on WB Our dime bank is a handy way to compare how little you pay to how much you get with World Book. Eight-year-old David Jennings' Mickey Mouse bank demonstrates how much you get when you want it hard enough. Mickey Mouse, you see, held most of the pennies that David had collected toward making a $30 down payment for World Book. The little boy from Dallas, Tex., had set his heart and his sights on the set when representative Elisa Turner first showed it to his family about a year ago. Writes Branch Vice-President and General Manager John Scott, "At that time, David was very excited about the books and started saving for the down payment. Delivery was made last week, and David was both proud and happy." Now the shelves in David's room have the 20 volumes of World Book as well as 40 of the banks he had collected and filled with pennies. "A penny saved is a penny earned," goes the saying. David would probably add that a penny invested in World Book is better than "money in the bank!" ===== On the shelves behind me you can see the set of World Books plus some of the banks I had at the time. Here is another picture taken from a slightly different angle that shows even more banks on the the shelves above the encyclopedias. You should definitely recognize some of those banks.

A few items to note in the standalone picture: It has a lot of pinholes because I had it pinned to a bulletin board in my room until I went to college. The two-volume World Book dictionary has switched sides from where it was in the picture used in the article. Apparently some rearranging occurred between takes. In the standalone picture that is not my hair behind my left ear, it's something on the wall behind me. That always bugged me because I didn't want people to think I was a long-haired hippie. Behind Ms. Turner's head, on the far left side of the picture, you can see the small black and white television set (with AM radio) I had in my room the whole time I was growing up. I don't recall ever watching TV on that set at night for some reason. (Maybe because we had a big color TV in the living room.) But I do remember frequently watching The Real McCoys or The Three Stooges before getting up to go to school in my younger years, on KTVT channel 11 when it was still an independent station. [Fun Fact: The "TVT" in KTVT stood for "TeleVision for Texans."] I also listened to a lot of Texas Ranger baseball games on that radio at night. Also behind Ms. Turner you can see part of the head and the rear end of the large bull bank that is no more. In both pictures you can see Ms. Turner is holding something. That is a very small bank. It's the dime bank referred to in the article, which is a plastic replica of one volume of a World Book encyclopedia. I still have that bank somewhere but unfortunately I can't find it at the moment. So the bank collection is more than just a collection of banks to me. It is a connection to not only the time we lived in Los Angeles but also to that set of World Book encyclopedias. And that set of encyclopedias certainly helped shape who I am today, since it was not only a tremendous help in completing assignments for school, it also allowed me to research almost anything as much as a wanted to. I would frequently read an article about something I was curious about, and then at the end of that article there would be a list of suggested articles related to that subject, which I would then investigate one by one, with those articles often leading to other articles, and so on. I would leave each book open on the floor to whatever I was reading last, such that it wasn't unusual to have ten or more volumes spread out all over the floor of my room. I'm sure many people who grew up with a set of encyclopedias in their home can relate to that. It could be compared to today's methods of doing research on the internet, with the "See also" in World Book articles being replaced by hyperlinks on web pages that take you to other pages, and the books spread out all over the floor being replaced by multiple browser tabs open. Eight-year-old me definitely would have been fascinated with the internet.

While writing all this I just realized that the Mickey Mouse bank is my Rosebud. Wow. Mind blown. Next up: Final thoughts

History Lessons (alternately, ch-ch-ch-ch-changes)

Today's post will discuss some of the things we ran across in 1967-68 that were a little different than the way things were 50 years later. We'll also review a few historical moments. Let's start with the culture at the time. 1967 was the Summer of Love, with the Monterey Pop Festival taking place in June on the west coast, the song "San Francisco (Be sure to wear flowers in your hair)" climbing the charts, and the hippie subculture gaining a foothold in many large cities, most notably San Francisco. That cultural phenomenon was clearly present in Los Angeles as evidenced by the various mentions of hippies in Mom's letters, especially the earlier ones. My small-town Texas parents definitely went through a bit of culture shock being exposed to all that, which gave us some entertaining reading on more than one occasion. Closely related to that cultural movement, and no doubt somewhat of a driver of it, was the escalation of the Viet Nam war in 1967. Protests against the war were also escalating, including marches that often turned violent. A Peace March scheduled to pass within a few blocks of our apartment on August 6, 1967 made my parents nervous enough to leave the area that day and make our first of many visits to Knott's Berry Farm. The military draft was also in effect at the time, and we got to see the impact of that on a young family in a letter one of Mom's friends wrote to her. Another bit of civil unrest during this time was the race riots that were occurring all over the country. (Look up "long, hot summer of 1967.") We moved to L. A. only three years after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was signed into law, and two years after the famous riots in the L. A. neighborhood of Watts. So when Dad found out Mom and I had unintentionally driven through Watts one day, he was understandably upset. Technology has obviously advanced a bit in the past 50 years. Some things that were relatively new at the time, with a certain "wow" factor, are either taken for granted today or have almost disappeared entirely. For instance, Dad spent a lot of money to purchase a Polaroid camera while we were there. Polaroid instant pictures were a good alternative to waiting days to have film developed and they gave people nearly instant gratification. But today, given how easy it is for anyone to take a digital picture and see it (and share it) instantly, for free, Polaroid film doesn't have much of a chance although it does have a certain nostalgic charm to it. Polaroid instant cameras are still available, although with slightly different technology. Another thing that wasn't commonplace in 1967 that we take for granted now is color TV. We had a black and white television set in our apartment, and one of the letters mentioned my parents' friends, the Dirrs, inviting us over to watch a TV special on their color television one night. Mom mentioned that she hoped we could buy a color TV when we got back to Texas, and I'm pretty sure we did before the end of the year. As previously noted, 1972 was the first year in which more color television sets were sold in the US than black-and-white sets. Also in the area of technology, something important was happening in the late 1960s that I don't think was mentioned in any of the letters although there were a few front page newspaper articles about it while we were in L. A. That was the race to the moon. The Apollo program was in its early stages, having yet to launch a manned spaceflight, yet we found our apartment in L. A. exactly two years before Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. The changes in technology in the past 50 years have certainly changed the way we communicate. In 1967, long before the internet was even a gleam in Al Gore's eye, there was no such thing as email. This was also long before mobile phones of any type were available, so there were no cell phones either, which meant no texting. No cell phones. No internet. No email. No texting. So how did people communicate? Well, people communicated the old fashioned way, via letters and phone calls using telephones connected to landlines. To make matters worse, the telephone companies charged extra for long distance calls outside of your local area, so most people, especially those who were pinching pennies, just didn't make a lot of long distance phone calls and tended to rely more on letters. We know letters were the primary method of communication between Mom and my grandmother. Letters at the time could go via ground, or you could pay a few cents more for airmail if you wanted faster delivery. All but one of Mom's letters was sent via airmail, and even with that we could see on a few occasions where the lag between sending and receiving caused some communication issues that wouldn't occur today. We have grown so accustomed to nearly instant communication these days that it's hard to imagine having to wait several days, perhaps more than a week, to have someone reply to a question. We did learn about one method of almost instant communication that was occasionally used back then, and that was the telegram. When my grandmother made her flight plans to visit us she sent a telegram because sending an airmail letter would have taken too long. Strangely enough, we also learned that Western Union continued their telegram service until 2006. Speaking of letters, we also learned the use of zip codes was somewhat new in 1967. Although Mom grew up in the house my grandmother was still living in, she didn't even know my grandmother's zip code when she started writing letters. It took her several months to get to the point where she always remembered to include the zip code when addressing the envelope, but she ended up doing it consistently. Not only was it nearly impossible to communicate as quickly as we do now, it was also difficult to get stuff as quickly. We moved to L. A. six years before the first overnight delivery service, Federal Express, began operations. People in 1967 probably didn't see much of a need for overnight deliveries, and they definitely would have been amazed that in the future you could even get same day delivery of some items. During our stay in L. A. we also ran across a few things that seem totally out of place today and have since been changed for the better, often with the prodding of the legal system. The first notable event was the search for an apartment in Los Angeles when my parents found it difficult to find an apartment building that would allow children. This was before the Fair Housing Act of 1968, so that was a perfectly legal practice at the time. The next incident that comes to mind was my encounter with a pay toilet when I was unable to pay. Fortunately pay toilets were banned in most places in the US in the 1970s and are rarely seen today. We learned that car seats were not very common in the late 1960s and certainly were not required by law. On a related note, I don't think any of the letters mentioned seat belts, but seat belts were not even required equipment for all seating positions in passenger cars until 1968, and wearing seat belts wasn't mandated by law until the mid 1980s. For most people it's weird to even think about not wearing a seatbelt today. Another more recent change in the area of child safety was the design of playground equipment. I haven't done any research on that, but the playground equipment I played on in Griffith Park would be viewed as quite archaic and hazardous today. Another item related to health and safety that was mentioned many times during the first half of our stay was the smog. Say what you will about California's environmental regulations, but they seem to have greatly improved the smog situation over the past 50 years. It was really sad reading Mom's description of how the smog affected us. Even if people who were living there got used to it, you know it had to have a negative effect on people's respiratory systems and who knows what else. If you want really bad smog today you can go to some big cities in China. We also learned that the medical guidelines regarding the consumption of alcohol during pregnancy have changed in the past 50 years, since Mom did not abstain early on in her pregnancy. In the world of sports there was a lot going on, although in most cases Mom just mentioned it as an aside, leaving me to do the research to figure out what game she was talking about. (You're welcome.) The most important thing from a historical perspective was the rise of OJ Simpson to national prominence as a junior running back for the USC Trojans. I really wish I could ask my dad what his thoughts were while watching college football's "Game of the Century" between USC and UCLA, especially OJ Simpson's touchdown run that is considered one of college football's best plays ever. The same goes for college basketball's "Game of the Century" between UCLA and The University of Houston two months later, which Mom and Dad both watched intently with friends while I played on the floor with coloring books and dominoes. Finally, since we were so close to Hollywood, it's only natural that the world of entertainment was featured in one way or another in many of the letters and diary entries. Mom and I saw a scene from the 1968 movie "The Party" being filmed, we saw a Shasta root beer commercial being filmed, and we attended tapings of Let's Make a Deal (with Monty Hall) and Art Linkletter's House Party. Our friends the Dirrs appeared on The Newlywed Game with Bob Eubanks, and Mom and I got to see Dean Martin's dressing room, including the toilet, as part of an NBC studio tour. And some television history was mentioned in one of the letters, too. That was the final episode of "The Fugitive" television series, the most watched TV show of all time until the world found out who shot J. R. Ewing 12 years later. In tomorrow's post I'll try to fill in a few gaps and tie up some loose ends.

Just the facts, ma'am

This post will take us down memory lane to go over some basic facts about what we crammed into our eight-month stay in Los Angeles, which turned out to be quite a bit. Not counting the days before we moved into our apartment and the day Mom and I left, we were living in Los Angeles for a total of 243 days. Although there were some slow days, we definitely took advantage of our short-term residency on the west coast and visited quite a few places. I was keeping a running total for a couple of months, but then I got behind and stopped. But fortunately for you loyal readers I went back and completed the task of documenting all the touristy places we visited. These totals may not be 100% accurate, but they're pretty close. We (meaning at least me and Mom, usually all three of us) made a total of 65 visits to 30 different places of interest, such as amusement parks, zoos, well-known shopping venues, etc., on 48 different days. (I did not count the unexpected tour of Watts in these totals.) That's an average of one place every 3.7 days, which I think is pretty impressive especially over a span of eight months. To refresh your memory, here they are in order of most-visited to least-visited: (8) Knott's Berry Farm (You knew that had to be at or near the top, didn't you?) (8) Olvera Street (Sometimes that was just to eat, but most of those were shopping visits) (6) Griffith Park (Just the park, not the observatory and planetarium) (4) Busch Gardens (Got beer?) (4) Santa Monica Beach (3) Chinatown - Los Angeles (3) La Brea Tar Pits (2) Alligator Farm (Feeding time!) (2) Disneyland (2) Griffith Park Observatory and Planetarium (2) Jungleland (Llamas not only spit, they bite.) (2) Los Angeles Zoo (The elephant's going to the bathroom!) (2) Universal City Studios (Put me down!) (1) Art Museum (Got nudes?) (1) Calico Ghost Town (1) Chinatown - San Francisco (1) Farmer's Market (I'm sure there was more than one visit there.) (1) Fisherman's Wharf - Los Angeles (1) Fisherman's Wharf - San Francisco (1) Japanese Deer Park (1) Little Tokyo (1) Lombard Street in San Francisco (1) Marineland (1) Movieland Wax Museum (1) Muir Woods (1) Natural History Museum (1) Palace of Living Art (1) Ports O' Call Village (1) San Antonio Winery (1) Santa's Village September and August of 1967 were the busiest months, with 20 and 13 touristy visits, respectively. My grandmother visited us for a week in September, so that helped. During our entire stay we twice hit three spots in the same day and on 13 occasions we hit two spots in the same day. In addition to visiting places we also visited or were visited by a number of people during our stay in Los Angeles. Here are some stats in that area: At least 22 different people and one dog visited our apartment during our stay. Including the eight days my grandmother stayed with us in September and the four days Cliff and his family stayed with us after Christmas, I think Mom's letters and diary entries mentioned visitors to the apartment on 29 different days. There were probably more. Here is a list of all the visitors in order of appearance (like they sometimes do in movie credits), with their relationship to us. Barbara Hansen (wife of Dad's coworker Erland Hansen)
Bee Gee (unknown, presumably wife of a coworker)
Eloise Mordecai (Mom's mom)
Ed Kubala (coworker of Dad's from Texas) and his family (Joyce, Stephen and Stephanie)
Jimmy H. and Marsha (friends of the Kubalas)
Gene Dirr (coworker of Dad's) and his wife Suzie
Ginger (the Dirrs' dog)
Mr. and Mrs. Sivell (old, old couple who were friends of my paternal grandparents)
Eric (the baby Mom babysat for the week before Christmas 1967)
Hartford Jenkins (large cigar-smoking coworker of Dad's)
Cliff Flescher (sp?) (coworker of Dad's) and his family (Mary, Ginger and Lynn)
Erland Hansen
Hartford Jenkins' girlfriend, name unknown
Art Snyder (insurance examiner stationed in Los Angeles for just a few weeks in February 1968)
Mom and Dad also visited various people in their homes while we were living in Los Angeles. Counting the Thanksgiving 1967 trip to San Francisco to visit Cliff and his family as one visit, I counted 13 visits to other people's homes. The only one in addition to visiting the Hansens, the Dirrs, the Sivells, and Cliff's family was the party at the apartment of the bridge playing bachelor on December 22, 1967. And let's not forget that I visited Mrs. Bruffy, the lady with the aquarium in her apartment, on several occasions. The next post will reflect on the Time Machine we went through while going through the letters and diary entries.

March 16 through July-ish, 1968: Oh baby, baby

The previous post covered the time shortly after Mom and I arrived in Texas, until Dad arrived almost two weeks later on March 15. Today we'll find out when she finally had that baby. Before the baby arrived there was apparently enough time to have some visitors to our house in Carrollton. Fortunately for us, Dad must have wanted to show off the Polaroid camera he purchased while we were in L. A. First, here is a picture of my maternal grandmother (Nana) and Aunt Sara, with some kid in a Batman t-shirt photobombing them in the background.

Aunt Sara is my grandfather's sister who was mentioned in a few of the letters and turned 99 years old on Christmas day of 2017. Next is a really neat picture that includes a few more people mentioned in Mom's letters.

Seated on the couch, left to right, are: My paternal grandparents, David C. and Jessie Lee Jennings Mom, looking more than a little pregnant Uncle Wayne Steven Aunt Linda And of course that's me on the floor laughing. The other neat thing I love about this picture is the items on the coffee table I was able to identify by zooming in. From left to right, they are: - A pacifier, presumably Steven's - A triangular purple glass ashtray that was a fixture in our house for as long as I can remember (since Mom and Dad both smoked) - The first of two glasses that are part of a set that may still be in the house I grew up in - A mug from the Playboy Club in L. A., with a white Playboy swizzle stick - Two Polaroid pictures - A small ashtray I don't remember, plus a tabletop cigarette lighter I don't remember - A newspaper (It might be the Belton Journal, but I can't tell for sure.) - A small bowl for a small turtle, with a bridge and a plastic palm tree. Snappy apparently made it back to Texas! - The second of two glasses from that set referred to previously The last doctor Mom saw in Los Angeles, Dr. Wright, estimated an early April delivery. But Mom waited until April 25 to deliver my sister Laura at Flow Memorial Hospital in Denton, the same hospital where I was born and where my sister Amy would be born in November of 1969. Dad was very happy not to have a foreign-born child, and he frequently reminded us kids we were fourth-generation Texans. Here's a picture of Laura in the nursery at the hospital.

If I really zoom in on that sign I can definitely see "Jennings," and if I use a little imagination I think I can see 6 lbs., 8 oz., and 19 inches. And here's a super adorable picture of Dad holding me up to the window to see Laura. Note the wall-mounted ashtray behind us.

So what do you do when you bring a baby home? You take pictures of everyone holding the baby. Here's a picture of me holding Laura. Note that I am wearing a Chinatown t-shirt.

Here's a picture of Dad holding Laura. He sure had a lot of hair back then, although you can see his infamous bald spot in its infancy.

And here's a picture of Mom holding Laura.

Is Mom glowing there, or what? Here's a picture of a few relatives who were mentioned in the letters and visited us shortly after Laura was born.

That's Uncle Nate (Dad's brother), Aunt Judy, their daughter Tracey, and me in the Chinatown t-shirt. There are more photos of various combinations of people, but that covers all the visitors I have pictures of from the time we got back to Texas until shortly after Laura was born. I could keep going and give you the rest of my life story, but Laura's birth seems like a good place to stop for now. I am working on a few more posts to wrap things up, and I hope to publish those daily. But don't panic if I do not.

March 4-15, 1968: We're putting the fam back together

The previous post covered our final days in Los Angeles and the flight back to Texas. Today's post will cover the time shortly after we got back to Texas. Mom and I stayed with Uncle Wayne and Aunt Linda for some period of time after we got back, I assume at least until Mom got the utilities turned back on at the house we were renting in Carrollton, if not until Dad got back from L. A. Here are some pictures taken at their house while we were there. We'll start with the new kid on the block, my cousin Steven, who was a few days shy of four months old. Here he is in his play pen.

The caption on this next one is: "David giving Steven his morning orange juice."

Here's one of me sitting on the floor with Steven. That's Uncle Mike and his girlfriend Ann on the couch behind us. Ann became Aunt Ann in November of that year.

Here's another one of me and Steven sitting on the floor. Mom's caption on this one is: "David adjusting Steven's head for this picture." It looks like we're both looking at a different camera.

Mom's caption on this next one is: "Wayne, the proud pappa, and Steven and David."

Finally, my favorite one of the bunch, which Mom captioned: "Two tired cousins after a hard morning of play."

It was almost two weeks before Dad returned to Texas, as Mom predicted in one of the last letters. Here is the relevant entry from his expense report for March of 1968: "Departed from Los Angeles by personal automobile at 8:00 AM on March 13, 1968, and arrived in Dallas at 3:00 PM on March 15, 1968. Request is made for reimbursement of airling [sic] fare of $84.00 in lieu of automobile mileage and per diem based on air travel in lieu of automobile travel time." If Dad's arrival time in Dallas was indeed 3:00 PM on March 15, then his door to door time, taking into account the two-hour time difference, was 53 hours. Our door to door time on the trip from Texas to L. A., which was just to Los Angeles itself and not to a specific location since we didn't have an apartment yet, was 52 hours and 30 minutes. So much for Dad making the return trip a lot more quickly by himself. Either that or he adjusted the time on his expense report to reflect nearly three 8-hour driving days. Remember how in the last two letters Mom was concerned about whether everything would fit in the car? Whenever Mom talked about Dad driving back to Texas she loved to mention the fact that he had to ride with the two pinatas (Santa Claus and Hazel the witch) in the front seat with him because the trunk and the back seat were so full. She said it looked hilarious when he pulled up to the house. So when did Mom drop that kid, oops, I mean have that baby? We'll cover that in the next post.

March 3-4, 1968: The trip home

As Mom stated in the last letter she wrote to my grandmother during our stay in Los Angeles, she and I flew from L. A. to Dallas the evening of Sunday, March 3. Here is what I have been able to piece together regarding our final days in L. A. and our trip home based on a few of my memories, some pictures, and hearing Mom talk about it years later.

The picture of me standing in front of The Brown Derby restaurant (well, standing in the landscaping), which was previously posted with the July 25, 1967 diary entry, was taken the last day we were in L. A. There are several other photos in that same part of the photo album that were likely taken our last weekend in L. A., although their captions don't state that explicitly. Here are a few:

This is the Ambassador Hotel, which was located at 3400 Wilshire Boulevard, less than one mile from our apartment. This hotel opened in 1921 and hosted the Academy Awards six times through 1943. It was the location of the Cocoanut Grove nightclub, which was frequented by many celebrities from the 1920s into the 1970s. (If you zoom in on this picture you can barely see the large signs for the hotel and the nightclub.) The Ambassador Hotel is also where presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in June of 1968. It closed to guests in 1989 and was then purchased by a real estate developer who proposed a 125-story building for the site. The developer lost a long legal battle with the Los Angeles unified school district after the school board tried to take the property via eminent domain, and a school was built on the site after the hotel was demolished in 2005.

[Fun Fact: That real estate developer went on to become President of the United States.] There were a couple of pictures in this part of the photo album of the building where Dad worked on Wilshire Boulevard, a few blocks west of the Ambassador Hotel. Nothing special about those pictures so I won't post any here.

Here is a picture of a bar called Thirsty 30s, which was somewhere on Temple Street based on the street sign I zoomed in on.

Mom's caption is: "This was just an old bar that we passed many times. Loved that sign." I was unable to find anything online about the bar or the Fred M. Atkins Tire Company next door, which had been doing dependable retreading for over 40 years at the time this picture was taken. (Atkins Tires and Wheels was established in 1997.) The last L. A. photo in the album was the Bull 'n Bush restaurant, which Mom mentioned in the next to last letter.

Mom's caption on this one is: "An eating place where we ate with Hansens. Loved the prime rib there." According to the description of a Flickr photo of the Bull 'n Bush taken in the early 1980s, it was open from 1956 through 1985, and Jack Webb (Sgt. Joe Friday from Dragnet) used to hang out there. It appears to have been on the southwest corner of 6th Street and Kenmore Avenue, based on the tall white building behind it in the photo from the photo album.

As you know, since Mom was so far along in her pregnancy there was a slight possibility she could go into labor during our flight home. I must have been at Mom's last doctor appointment in L. A. because according to Mom, the doctor told me that if she started to have the baby my job was to collect shoelaces from the other passengers. I honestly don't know if that was just to keep me occupied so I wouldn't be in the way, or if the shoelaces might have served a purpose such as tying off the umbilical cord. (I don't know nothin' about birthin' babies!) In any case, I allegedly took the instructions from the doctor very seriously and I was prepared to do my duty.

Although the flight to Texas was my first flight, I really don't remember anything from the flight itself. No, Mom didn't go into labor. She always liked to tell the story that I was so excited about flying I went to the bathroom three times before the flight took off. I do have one flashback memory of being picked up at the airport in Dallas, though. (At least I think this is from when we were picked up.) Uncle Wayne and Aunt Linda picked us up, and Mom and I sat in the back seat of their car. I remember Aunt Linda holding my cousin Steven, who was almost four months old, over her left shoulder in the front passenger seat, and him looking at us in the back seat. I guess since I had been hearing about Steven for a few months, and he was the first newborn in the family I was aware of, I thought it was really neat to finally see him. We'll pause here and cover the days after our arrival in tomorrow's post.

February 28, 1968: Mixed Emotions

Second letter postmarked February 28, 1968: The CCZCC extends its winning streak to 29.

Dear Mother and Mike,

Get ready for my homecoming - March 3 (arrival time 2:30 AM Dallas time). I know you're all going to hate us for that ungodly hour and I can't blame you. Please forgive us and try to understand. Dave says he feels like we're no better than the Dirrs, imposing on y'all this way.

Do whatever you think best about picking us up at the airport. If it would be better on all of you for just Wayne to be there (I realize Mike must go to school the next day and you have to go to work), that will be fine with me. Secretly, I am hoping maybe you can take Monday or part of Monday off, but that is just wishing on my part - there's always Monday night for me to talk you to death.

[Since 1968 was a leap year, March 3 was a Sunday. So our flight must have departed L. A. the evening of Sunday, March 3 and arrived in Dallas at 2:30 AM on Monday, March 4. We would have flown into Love Field in Dallas since DFW Airport didn't open for commercial service until January of 1974.] [Fun Fact #1: The first landing of a supersonic Concorde jet in the US occurred during the DFW Airport dedication ceremonies in September of 1973.] [Fun Fact #2: One night in the early 1970s, my parents were out with some friends (Jim and Bernie Pyland). I don't know if they took a wrong turn or what, but they ended up driving on one of the runways at DFW Airport before it opened.]

Needless to say, David Wayne is excited. He drew a picture the other night of an airplane, stick-figure people on the airplane, and stick figures of all of you standing on the ground. He said, "If Knucklehead is there and if he feels like it, I'm going to give him a sock in the nose." He hasn't mentioned any punishment for the rest of you, but you better have your guard up anyway.

[I must have grown out of this violent stage rather quickly, as I don't remember being that way at all.]

Dave is another sad story. He has been gloomy and depressed ever since he called the airport. He was all for me going (relieved is a better expression) and he was just fine until it came to actually setting the day and hour. Of course, he tries to hide it, but I know him too well for him to fool me. He's miserable! He won't know anyone here (Hansens are leaving Friday) and there just won't be anything for him to do. I just pray he'll only have to spend one weekend by himself. He admitted the other night he didn't think he could stand the peace and quiet without David Wayne here.

[Awwwww . . . And to think that Dad was a bachelor just a year and a half ago.]

And then, too, he's worried about me having to get all the utilities turned on, the house cleaned, etc. He feels he should be the one to take care of those chores.

I am pretty excited myself about coming home and seeing all of you again. I would be happier if Dave could be there, too. There is so much for me to do and tales to tell and people to see that I can keep very busy the two weeks Dave is out here. I do hope you've already called the Browns about the baby bed. I really don't feel up to a reunion with them. If Mike could get it beforehand, he'll just have to run over and get it, whereas if I have to go, it'll be like "old-home" week and I'd have a lengthy visit. Not that I dislike them, but I just want to spend time with my family, or shopping for baby things, or just plain resting. And I can't forget about the rest as I'm at that point of pregnancy where I am big, uncomfortable, and tired. The "tired business" has been almost from the first month, however.

[Thank goodness we won't have to hear about this baby bed any more. That was getting as old as the baby food warmer.]

We have just about everything packed - you should see the boxes! It will take a magician to get them all in the car.

[As previously mentioned, it's a 1965 Pontiac Bonneville. No problem.]

I still have my kitchen stuff to get ready, but I can get that done Saturday. Dave has done all the packing and I just supervised, so I'm not worn out in the least bit. We've been doing a little each night so this weekend with Dave will be pleasant and relaxing. We'll call this weekend and tell you the flight number - probably we'll call Wayne, too.

I received a disturbing letter from the Jennings. It seems Mr. J., having nothing better to do, called Wayne to make sure he'd pick me up. In fact, it seems he's called Wayne often lately. The man had also called an airport and found out that I'm not supposed to fly (against regulations during eighth month) so he was all stirred up over that and naturally, told us exactly what to do. As you know, I've never had any complaints about Dave's parents - they're wonderful. But for just a moment as I read that letter, I felt the same about Mr. J. as I did about Charles' dad. (Remember how he was always telling us how to do things.)

[Charles was my biological father. It sounds like Mom had issues with her first father-in-law.]

Dave is embarrassed about his dad calling Wayne. I hope it didn't make Wayne mad. I guess since he retired he's got nothing better to do than worry about his sons. Dave says he never has been that way too much before. Well, we will just have to keep in mind that he means well.

[That's a good way to look at it. Consider the intentions. Another suggestion I heard a few years ago that really helps is to assume stupidity before malice.]

I better get this in the mail. Can't wait to see you and talk and talk and talk. I'll just never run down.

Love,

Linda

[And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the final letter. On March 4 I'll have a blog post about the trip home.]