Thursday, November 30, 1972

November 30, 1972

13119 Hermitage, Houston

Dear Family,

I didn’t get around to writing a letter after we returned from Kansas last weekend, partly I guess because we had just had that wonderful visit with 2/3 of the Strand family and writing a letter would have seemed sort of like an anti-climax. It was surely a most enjoyable time for us and we are very grateful to Marlys & Verner for their hospitality; we’ll remember this Thanksgiving for a long time with fond recollection. Since I didn’t write last weekend I’ll write a letter this evening so I can Xerox it at work tomorrow — otherwise it would wait till next Tuesday as I will have Monday off again as a day of vacation.

Right now it’s after supper, Jean is cleaning up in the kitchen, Palma is off to some program-planning session for church & Laurel is in her room I guess. Supper was a bit late as Thursday evening is violin lesson night for Laurel (at 5:45 PM at the high school) and it was half past six before we got home. Palma has perked up as the week went on but she was feeling pretty low Monday night — sort of a let down after the good time in K.C.; this evening she was in better spirits than she’s been for several days but she still makes no bones about wanting “out” of Texas.

Our return from Kansas was uneventful and I guess Muriel made it all right to Austin — we haven’t heard from her since she left our flight in Dallas to catch another plane. Hopefully we’ll have a letter this weekend. We here were home about 7:30 PM, after stopping to pick up some eggs & milk at an all nite grocery store; the girls didn’t want to stop at a restaurant, so we had a snack at home instead. Monday the girls were back in school, but I had the day off so Jean & I slept late. The day was sunny (after several cloudy, rainy days here in Houston, including, I understand, quite a miserable day for Thanksgiving) and I spent some time out in the garage giving a third coat of varnish to the chair I’ve been refinishing, changing the license plates on the cars (I’d been to the county assessor-tax collector’s office early last week, transferring title from Calif to Texas for the cars & getting license plates for the rest of the Texas year which ends in April) and various other jobs. After lunch Jean & I went out for several small shopping errangs and later on I spent some time putting some plastic on some screened cupboard doors that Jean wanted closed in to keep out the dust. I ended the day finishing the drawing for our Christmas letter and watching part of the Monday night football game.

Tuesday night there was a concert at Laurel’s school in which the school orchestra in which Laurel plays participated so Jean & I went to hear it. It was about on a par with Portola Jr high concerts except that the orchestra & band emphasis was more evenly applied here. There was also, in connection with the vocal groups, some skits based on the Peanuts cartoon strip which were well done I thought. On the way home Laurel remarked that she’s getting to like the people at her school — she’s making a better adjustment I think than Palma, or Muriel for that matter.

All for this time

With love, Carl