Sunday, January 7, 1973

January 7, 1973

13119 Hermitage, Houston

Dear Family,

It’s the middle of a cloudy, rainy, cold afternoon on this first Sunday afternoon of 1973 and it’s the kind of day which ain’t fit out for man nor beast, in my opinion. One thing you can say about it though is that it is consistent with its immediate predecessors, which were generally equally cloudy and cold, but at times rainier. At that I suppose we shouldn’t complain after reading about the ice storm and interrupted electrical service in the Kansas City area (we surely have wondered how the Prairie Village Strands were making out) and the wintry temperatures reported from the upper midwest and other parts of the country.

Today started off in the usual fashion with some pecan rolls for breakfast that Muriel had made earlier in this holiday season; then Palma, Laurel & I went to church — Jean stayed home with a lame back which she got yesterday when she straightened up too suddenly (it’s a little better today but she isn’t bending or stooping over for the time being) and Muriel wasn’t in the mood for a Memorial Drive United Methodist church type service. After church but before lunch Laurel, Muriel & I went off an a shopping expedition of sorts — Muriel to inspect a bicycle which she thought she might want to buy (the boy who had it was making some repairs and it wasn’t ready when we arrived so we left altho Muriel thought it looked like it might meet her requirements — maybe we’ll inspect it again later this afternoon), Laurel to get some supplies for the art class which is one of her classes this semester, and all three of us to do some grocery shopping. It was one o’clock before we were back & had lunch and since then I’ve been occupied with various odd jobs till I started in on this letter.

Well, it was back to work for Shell on Tuesday and as the week progressed more people kept returning from all the year-end vacations so that by Friday there were only a few people still absent. A fair number had spent the time back in California and brought back accounts of frozen plants, snow and freezing temperatures. Next week will be a full five-day week for a change and I can look forward to a succession of these now with only occasional breaks until summer comes — the first half of the year is always lean on holidays & vacation time it seems.

Palma & Laurel were back in school on Wednesday with about the same schedules except for one or two classes. Palma has a humanities class this semester which sounds good (they are starting out with WDurant’s book on history of philosophy) and Laurel has this art class for which the Texas school system provides no supplies — Jean says we’ve spent about $10 so far on this class, rather different from the custom in California.

Friday evening we had the Johnstons for supper — Palma & Muriel made crepes for both the main meal [ham with mushroom & cheese sauce] & the dessert [chocolate & tangerine] both of which were delicious. Yesterday our Shell friends the Towells came for supper & a visit and later we played our new dictionary game with them & they seemed to enjoy it. Laurel missed out on the game as she was babysitting again for the people who live directly behind us.

We almost acquired a cat again from two small girls in the neighborhood who had found a small half grown stray cat and were trying to find a home for it. However it wandered off last night and since then we haven’t seen it so it may not come back. It resembled our previous cat somewhat. It looked like it had had a hard time of it through its young life and I hope it makes out wherever it is today.

All for this time.

With love, Carl