Saturday, November 22, 1958

November 22, 1958

411 Bonnie Dr

El Cerrito, Calif.

Dear Brothers & Sisters,

Since I wrote last in the round robin we have driven to Iowa, using the three weeks of vacation I still had left, and we have been back now over two months. This was our first experience in driving such a long distance and I can’t say I would want to do it again soon, but might at some later time. On the way to Iowa we stopped for several days to Rocky Mountain Park and returning we came via Joplin and stopped at the Black Canyon of the Gunnison & the Colorado National Monument. We have just recently got our last batch of slides from the trip finished and they turned out quite good. One we lost tho since it was the first one on the roll and I hadn’t rolled the film far enough before taking the picture. On the way back we stopped one hot afternoon at a cafe in western Kansas and by chance happened to try their apple dumplings. They were so good that Jean has copied them & this is now one of our favorite desserts.

This fall has been a warm one in Calif, except for a short cold snap a week ago and severa flowers have started growing as tho it were spring. Among these are the roses and we have had as pretty roses as we have had at any time just recently. Because of the nice weather I have the yard in pretty good shape in anticipating of the winter. There will be the usual pruning jobs to do in the winter but except for those there will only be such tasks as mowing the lawn every other week, some minor trimming etc. My next major project is the replacement of the backyard fence but I’m not sure when this will get started.

Muriel and Palma continue to grow and change rapidly as is usual for children of this age. Muriel is in the kindergarten class at Sunday School now and every once in awhile pops up with something she has learned there; she’ll be eager to start school next fall I’m sure. Lately her coloring skill has improved a lot and she does fairly well by the hula-hoop (she’s only had it 3 or 4 days now) but nothing like Billy I’m sure. Palma seems to be passing thru a less desirable stage right now, being somewhat fussy much of the time, not wanting to eat as she should and being prone to falls etc. I guess she’ll grow out of it though.

My work at Shell continues much as usual and last August I passed by 16th anniversary with them. Not too many years and I’ll have lived longer in Calif than in Iowa. My luck at avoiding business trips held up for more than a year but it looks like I’ll need to make one in Dec (maybe the airline will be on strike though and this would cancel it).

For the next year or so I plan to try to develop my cartooning into a salable product. I haven’t had any puck so far but haven’t kept at it too conscientiously tho so that may be the reason.

All for now.

With love,

Carl, Jean, Muriel & Palma

Sunday, June 29, 1958

June 29, 1958

411 Bonnie Dr

El Cerrito, Calif.

Dear Brothers & Sisters

Since I wrote for the round robin the last time we have been down to San Diego to see Marold, Jeanne & Gregg in their new home and also to see various places and people along the way. We drove down in our new automobile — a yellow Plymouth — which we acquired early in May. As we were starting out on a Friday evening (we planned on driving to Merced the first evening so as to have less to drive the next day) I heard a funny noise when the car was in low but was not disposed to turning back at that point since all our plans for the trip had been made. The noise persister all the trip but didn’t give anu trouble — when I had the car in for a checkup when we got back, they found one gear with a tooth broken off and eventually they had to replace several gears before the transmission sounded all right, so I guess we were fortunate.

We stopped along the way to visit some of Jean’s friends & spent a couple of days in L.A. with Jean’s sister. Then we stayed in motels in various places while seeing Disneyland and Marineland, & visiting various people. We were at Howard Nelson’s for dinner one evening and Howard looked quite different than when I saw him last. He had lost a good part of his hair & looked rather different I thought. We also spent a few hours at Knott’s Berry Farm which I think the children enjoyed more than either Disneyland or Marineland. Muriel was frightened of several things Disneyland and of the whole, & other fishes too, at Marineland, so we feel that she was too young to really appreciate them.

We visited at Marold’s several days & visited the zoo & beach while we were there. The San Diego Zoo has a new part called the “Children’s Zoo” where they can pet animals etc & both M & P liked this — they didn’t want to leave as they were quite ready to do at the other places we say. We took two days to drive back so we arrived in time to unpack and relax a but before starting the work-a-day routine again.

As usual we keep busy in our every-day life. This summer I plan to paint the stucco on the house, maybe getting the first or conditioner coat on over the long 4th-of-July weekend. I started last weekend scraping off the old paint & still have some to do before I can start the painting. Jean has made herself a new outfit — which she plans to wear today when we go to the 50th wedding anniversary open house for the Gust Knocks.

Palma appears to be fairly well trained and has been increasing her vocabulary of late, but still is far behind Julie. Muriel measures her existence relative to the day, still more than a year off, when she can start kindergarten. This next week we will be at Roy & Beverly Milton’s for supper on Tuesday — we also saw David & his family on our trip.

All for now, till next the RR comes around

With love,

Carl

Monday, April 14, 1958

April 14, 1958

411 Bonnie Dr

El Cerrito, Calif.

Dear Brothers & Sisters

In between bites of Jean’s cinnamon-raisin bread I will start my contribution to the round robin. The loaf from which my slice came was freshly baked today so it is very tasty. It is almost nine o’clock and I’ve finished the weekly letter to Gowrie and a note to Aunt Hulda so I’ll be about ready to turn in when I get this letter finished.

Today I felt sort of sleepy and lazy perhaps because of my unusual session in the yard over the weekend, so I don’t think I’ll last awake much past 9:30 or so. A week ago today the weather turned sunny after a long rainy spell & since then it has been nice. So on Saturday I really did a lot in the yard and I guess my out-of-shape muscles still feel it.

Altho there were quite a few cases of houses sliding or “subsiding” as the newspapers put it during the rainy weather, we fortunately escaped all of this. The little drainage sump I put in, in the basement, when I was putting in the concrete floor last fall, collected water faster than usual but still required attention only a couple of times a day. From our living room windows we can see a coupe of the slides that occurred on Albany hill a mile or so away. One of these slid into the back yard of a Shell Development employee, altho I didn’t happen to know him. Down at work during a particularly rainy spell the Temescal creek plugged up at a brush guard and sent the creek flowing out into the street so that Shell Dev was about ½ surrounded with water. old-timers said it was the worst they had ever seen it. The creek overflowed about noon and by five the waters had receded slightly but it must have been late at night by the time the Emeryville street dept got the creek unplugged. I couldn’t help but be reminded of Vivian’s little blue house by the river and the times when it has been flooded, or nearly so.

As usual our daily, weekly, & monthly schedule is largely det’d by what stage Muriel & Palma are in. Palma has a pretty good start on being trained and we hope that she will be nearly so when we make our planned trips this year to San Diego & Iowa. Tho still a blonde, she is a little darker-haired now than when she was born. She is a great imitator and picks up the things Muriel does even when she doesn’t know the reason. Muriel is in the “why?” stage now and Palma also has learned to say why (altho she doesn’t know why she is saying it). I’ll be reading to her and come to the end of a Mother Goose rhyme and she’ll say “why” like amen — not really asking about anything but just making the proper (to her) response.

This will be all for now. Hope you are all feeling well & fit.

With love

Carl