Saturday, October 7, 1972

Oct 7, 1972
13119 Hermitage, Houston

Dear Family,

I’ve just finished writing a letter to Muriel, and it’s getting along toward bedtime but I’ll at least get started in the weekly letter to the family before I call it a day. Next weekend, Muriel will be coming home for a weekend visit and we are surely looking forward to seeing her again — it will have been 6 weeks I guess since Palma & I took her to Austin, but it seems as though she’d been gone for a much longer time. She put in her order to several things she likes to eat — but which she hasn’t encountered in her dormitory fare.

Another cold front penetrated across Texas to Houston this weekend and therefore we are having another delightful weekend — not quite as cool as last weekend so far but the forecast is for a temperature in the mid-50s tomorrow morning. This time we also haven’t had any rain tho there were scattered showers predicted. During this past week we did have some rather warm days, but generally I think that after mid-Sept, Texas weather becomes quite acceptable. I spent this morning mostly gardening. No mowing of grass which seems to be growing slower as we get further into autumn, but I pruned the bushes along the house, raked the backyard; fertilized the berry vines, bushes and my bonsai trees. Then this afternoon I rearranged things in the garage a bit and finally moved my tool chest out there — didn’t want it there till I’d got the garage doors so I could lock them, but had that accomplished several weeks back. This took till about the middle of the afternoon and I spent the rest of the time till supper fixing or adjusting cabinet catches.

Jean continues to feel better each passing day but still doesn’t like to drive (tho she has this past week) so I took her to the polls for the school board election this morning. I’d neglected to get my voter registration in time for this election, but have it for the general election in November, so I couldn’t vote today. Not much interest in this election — Jean was voter #13 at about 10 AM after the polls had been open 3 hours or so I guess. On the way home we did some grocery shopping — otherwise the day was spent at home.

Tuesday night was open house at Westchester High for junior and senior classes, so Jean & I got to see all of Palma’s teachers and hear a little about how they conduct their classes and what their objectives are. Again we were favorably impressed by the teachers, as we had been a week before by Laurel’s at Spring Forest Jr. High. One of Palma’s teachers — her history teacher — had retired from Humble Oil after 25 years work several years back and had gone into teaching. He said he considered his work teaching a lot more significant than what he did at Humble (he didn’t elaborate on what that was). 

* * *

Well, it’s Sunday afternoon now and Jean & I are sitting out in the backyard, reading or writing & meanwhile just enjoying the weather. Palma is inside with the TV on and Laurel is off babysitting. Today was Jean’s first Sunday back to church after her operation; we’d thought some of an afternoon excursion to an “October-Fest” at Round-Top, about 1/2 the way to Austin. Sort of an antique show with several restored houses in the town also. But Jean felt she wasn’t up to that much driving so we’re spending an easy & relaxing afternoon at home. Should be a good way to get ready for the week of work coming up. All for this time.

With love, Carl