Saturday, October 14, 1972

Oct 14, 1972

13119 Hermitage, Houston

Dear Family,

It’s getting on toward 5 PM on this fall day in Houston (perhaps a bit on the warm side but not uncomfortably so) and I’ve just cleaned up after the day’s activities and between now and when we leave for supper & a visit with the Vanderwaters (Shell and El Cerrito acquaintances) I’ll get this weekly letter written.

Jean has just gone to take a short nap before the evening out, Laurel is playing the piano and Muriel & Palma haven;t returned as yet from their afternoon of shopping. Laurel isn’t taking piano lessons & has reacted quite negatively to any suggestions along that line, so it’s a little surprising to have her start in playing again all on her own; hopefully her interest will retrn and maybe we can get her into taking lessons again. Palma is now having a lesson every other week from a lady just behind us and likes her teaching quite well.

Muriel is home for a weekend visit and it surely was nice to see her again and to talk in more detail about her classes at the university etc. Originally we’d expected to have her come by bus and we’d pick her up at Katy (a small town about 15 miles to the west of us) but she skipped a late class and so got a ride home with a cousin of her dormitory roommate. We’ve done a lot of talking since she got home and I for one have a better picture of her school life now than I did before. She continues not to like dormitory food and is I think a bit thinner than when she left six weeks ago. She’ll go back tomorrow afternoon for another stint at school until Thanksgiving when we’ll be seeing her again.

This week Laurel had the second two of the 4 teeth that the orthodontist wanted removed extracted, so now she is ready for him to begin putting on the braces to start straightening her teeth. She has an uncomfortable couple of years ahead of her and I hope she doesn’t regret her desire to have this dental work done. Her bill will be higher than Muriel’s (probably because of inflation and also the tendency for higher dental prices in Houston); I guess we were fortunate in having only 2 children having to have this experience, as Palma only needed minor work involving a retainer for awhile.

Work at Shell continues rather busy these days — there appears to be a very marked turnabout from the condition during the last months at Emeryville. In response to the increased number of projects there has been an increase in the dept personnel by transfer in from other parts of Shell. So I guess for several years at least the dept will have a sellers market rather than a buyers market for their work. Should continue I suppose till about the time the new research center is completed in 1975. I heard the other day that some concern had developed about the fault lines under the proposed site that might affect the building plans — seems that there are local salt domes in the vicinity that cause shifting of the ground and consequent damage to buildings. I thought that having left Calif I wouldn’t be affected by fault lines but this doesn’t appear to be the case.

* * *

Yesterday was a fairly busy day for me tho I did knock off early for our evening at the Vanderwaters and also spent time at & after breakfast in conversation with Muriel. I repaired a leaky mechanism in one toilet and also fixed up some faucets that have continued to drip after my first effort at fixing them (they don’t leak this time); also sprayed for bugs around the outside of the house, particularly along the foundation & around windows & doors. Still have to do some spraying inside. We’ve noticed more bugs lately so I guess the effect of the spraying we have done before we arrived is wearing off. Also went to the bank in the morning & took Laurel on a brief shopping trip. All for this time.

With love, Carl