Jan 21, 1973
13119 Hermitage
Dear Family,
It’s Sunday evening, Jean and
the girls are watching television (Jean is knitting also) and I’ve
just finished looking thru some copies of the Eugene, Oregon
Register-Guard — part of our preliminary inspection of
Eugene as a potential place of retirement a year from next summer.
The day has been a nice sunny one but rather windy, sort of like a
March day in Iowa except rather warmer. This morning when I went out
to pick up the Sunday paper, the bayou seemed to be just alive with
birds — quite a few robins and whole flocks of blackbirds plus
others that I didn’t recognize.
After we returned from church
this morning I did a little gardening outside, raking up enough pine
needles etc from the front yard to fill the trash can, watering my
potted plants etc, then later on in the afternoon (after a good nap)
I planted some bulbs that Muriel had given me for Christmas and some
that Jean had bought earlier at some church meeting she’d gone to —
it was really delightful to be outside in the beautiful weather.
Towards the late afternoon Jean & I went for a walk in the bayou;
despite the little thunderstorm we had last night it seemed quite dry
underfoot and we had a good hike. I guess the windy day had dried it
off.
Yesterday Jean and I took Muriel
and her baggage back to Austin for her second semester at the Univ of
Texas. Included in her baggage this time was the secondhand bicycle
she bought while she was home on Christmas vacation; I was able to
take off the handle bars so was able to get in into the trunk which
was convenient (otherwise I’d have had to put on the luggage rack
on top of the car to transport it). We left about 8 AM and had her
unloaded etc by about 11 AM. The weather on the way up wasn’t too
promising — considerable low fog and occasional light misty rain —
but after we got to Austin the weather cleared partly and the rest of
the day was quite nice.
Muriel was really ready to be
back at school after her 4-week layoff (including the week extension
caused by the cold weather in Austin) and I guess she was glad to see
somebody else than the family for a change. Anyway she declined to
accompany Jean and me on the sightseeing we planned on doing. Jean
and I visited the LBJ library,
the Texas capitol building,
the O. Henry house & museum
and the French legation.
The library and capitol were interesting tho rather predictable in
content and interest — I liked most some western painting at the
library & Jean liked the White House chinaware that Ladybird had designed.
The best item on our itinerary
was the French legation. During the 10 years or so that Texas was a
republic, the French built a building in Austin which served both as
the legation and the home of the official in charge; it was the only
one that remained of those countries that did establish relations
with Texas and had been restored in recent years by the DTR
(Daughters of the Texas Revolution). It contained items from that
period and also from subsequent owners (one of which, the family that
is, owned it for many years).
We left Austin about 5 PM so we
reached La Grange about dusk, had supper at the Bon Ton restaurant there and got home about 9 PM. Palma & Laurel weren’t
up when we left but they had enjoyed having the house to themselves
while we were gone.
The rest of the week was about as
usual. Shell was threatened with a strike on Thurs but it was
postponed at least till this week. Palma got her score on the
PSAT/NMSQT and she did about the same as Muriel as we have hopes
she’ll get a scholarship like Muriel but time will tell. Work was
as usual, I finished a memorandum that I hadn’t been looking
forward to so was glad to have it done.
All for this time
With love, Carl
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