Sunday, September 24, 1972

Sept 24, 1972

13119 Hermitage, Houston

Dear Family,

It’s a rainy day here in Houston — the kind of day, or rain, that was termed an “all day rain” back in my growing up days in Iowa. Maybe still is called that for that matter. It began late yesterday afternoon with what seemed to be a typical afternoon or evening thunder shower, but since then it hasn’t c;eared up in the usual fashion and instead has developed into a light but steady rain. I woke up several times during the night to hear the rain on the roof and as of now it’s still pretty drippy outside (a little after 9 PM — after breakfast but before time to drive to church). I wonder how Palma is making out on her overnite retreat with the church group. They went to a beach house down near Galveston and my guess is that the weather there is about what it is here — normally it could be dry there while it was rainy here, but today is an exception. She wasn’t too eager to go and we sort of talked her into it, so I hope it doesn’t prove to be an unhappy time. At least with the rain the temperature is lower which should make things more comfortable.

I’m happy now that I decided to mow the front yard yesterday — it was getting pretty long in spots and, judging by how “squishy” it was when I walked out to pick up the Sunday paper, today isn’t the day when it would mow very easily (even if the rain would let up). I’d let it go longer than usual because on the average it wasn’t growing very fast, perhaps because fall is approaching, so it was getting to the point where I had to do something soon. Normally I would have done it early yesterday but we has an appointment with a potential violin teacher for Laurel and some other things also intervened, so it was about the middle of the afternoon before I started. It was a little warm doing it then, but the sky was cloudy so it wasn’t too bad. By the time I finished about 6 PM the thundering had started and the rain began with the half hour. Laurel had gone bicycling off to visit a friend and would have been caught in the rain coming home, except that she was invited to spend the night at the friend’s. She was brought home so the bicycle is still there — I guess we’ll pick it up on the way home from church. With Laurel off visiting, Palma at the retreat and Muriel at school, Jean & I were alone at home last night. We spent the evening watching a movie on TV, really a pretty good one with sort of a surprise ending.

We continue to get reasonably happy news from Muriel at Austin who I think the confinement of dormitory life isn’t all to her liking. Probably in future years she will try to get an apartment along with some other students. She likes to get up early — which is different from most dormitory inhabitants — and go to bed relatively early, which is also different. One evening she was particularly irked when she’d been asleep & her roommate & a friend came in late & proceeded to play the radio loudly. She apparently has located a ride to & from Houston on some weekends so we may be seeing her in a couple of weeks, and we can really get caught up on things.

Work this past week has been a bit frustrating since the problem I’ve been working on has proved to be surprisingly intractable and I’m still quite a ways from a solution — it started out as a one-week job and I’ve already spent two on it. This next week the fellow I usually ride with is off to Europe for 4 weeks (he is a native of Germany) but I think I have a ride linked up so I won’t have to drive. Jean continues to improve and to increase her activities — it’s about a month now since the operation. One day she did the wash but it was still pretty much all she could handle, but she’s doing quite a bit of the cooking now.

All for this week With love, Carl