Sunday, January 14, 1973

Jan 14, 1973

13119 Hermitage, Houston

Dear Family,

As I start to write I’m watching the last gasp of the football season and sort of rooting for Washington to win, mostly I guess because I’d like to see Miami, which has its 17 game winning streak to defend, get its comeuppance. It’s a beautiful day here in Houston today — and yesterday was a beautiful day also — but both days are quite a change from some of the wintry weather we experienced last week. The week thru Friday was cloudy (up thru Friday Houston had had only one day with any sunshine at all in 1973) and Thursday Houston had its first snow since about 1960. I suppose a couple of inches fell altogether but it was enough to make the landscape white, pretty much disrupt business & school activity, and give the children of Houston a chance to make numerous snowmen, throw snowballs, go sledding on a whole range of improvised sleds and generally experience what the north has every year. Over the years Houston has averaged a real snowfall like Thursday’s every 10–15 years so it was due to happen. The last snowfall in 1960 was 4 inches and that had been the record except for a real freak snowstorm back in 1895 when about 24 inches fell. After seeing what 2" could do, 24" would really have paralyzed Houston.

The snow started early Thursday and there were a few accumulated flakes on the newspaper when I picked it up off the sidewalk at about 6:15 AM. The ride to work was a pretty slushy one with the snow falling steadily with large flakes tho not really heavily. It kept on well past midday and work at Shell was let out at 3 PM, so I was home early )in time to wrap the outside water pipes & faucets against the anticipated ~20°F temperature Thursday night). I also took the precaution of draining the radiator of the old ’58 Plymouth, it only has water in it as it still leaks (where the water goes to I’ve never been able to figure out). The girls went to school on Thursday tho attendance was rather spotty and were also home early — most school districts in & around Houston didn’t have school on Thursday but our district did. It turned out that the supt was off skiing and no one was willing to act in his absence — the supt is a rather autocratic individual and sort of runs the district as his personal fiefdom. However, school was let out on Friday so Palma & Laurel had a day of vacation; Shell however thought the situation wasn’t that bad (as indeed it wasn’t) so I spent the day working as usual. Both Thursday & Friday nights the temperature did get down to about 20°F, so I was glad I’d brought all the delicate plants inside and to have taken the other precautions I did.

Even before the snowstorm Texas had been having some unusually cold weather and these involved fuel shortages in parts of the state. The Univ of Texas at Austin was involved in one of these shortages so the opening of the spring semester was delayed for one week; as a consequence we didn’t take Muriel back to Austin yesterday as we had planned. Instead we’ll do that next Saturday, and miss seeing Nixon’s second inauguration as a result — can’t say I was that interested in seeing the inauguration anyway. Muriel would be happy to be back in school, she’s about had her fill of being back home again. This past week she bought a secondhand bicycle to take back to Austin to help her get around; I guess she feels there is too much walking to suit her.

Yesterday (and from late afternoon on Friday) Palma participated in a 24 hour fast held by the youth groups at Memorial Drive United Methodist church. She came home shortly after 6 o’clock yesterday evening and said that she certainly felt the effects, tho I think it was at least partly psychological. Their fasting was sponsored on an hourly basis by church members and the proceeds were to be used for earthquake relief in Nicaragua and partly for local purposes. We left shortly afterward (Palma stayed home & Laurel was babysitting so it was just Jean, Muriel & I) for supper & an evening of visiting at the Woods — Shell friends from California. Today has been about the usual Sunday; Jean & I did go for a walk in the bayou after lunch but iut was still rather muddy so we didn’t go far.

All for now, With love, Carl