My Daughter Is NOT a Princess!

My oldest daughter, Claire, informed me yesterday that she is NOT a princess.  Not no way.  Not no how.  Not.  A.  Princess.

This, coming from someone who, as a little girl, lived and breathed princess, made me scratch my head.  She had princess sheets, a princess comforter, princess curtains.  She dropped coins into a princess bank, carried a princess purse, and had a princess spoon and fork.  We had tiaras coming out the wahzoo and so many princess dresses, you would have thought we were the Disney costume shop.  Princess t-shirts, princess pajamas, princess toothbrushes, a princess backpack and a princess lunchbox.  We had lunch in Cinderella's Castle and met all of the princesses, and once, after meeting Prince Charming, she whispered in awe, "He called me fweethawrt!"

First trip to Disney World, 2004

It was all princess all the time.  Really.  All the time.

Second trip to Disney World, 2005

Of my girls, Claire is the one I would have least expected to say, "I am not a princess!"  

"Woah.  What brought this on?"  I asked her.

It seems that the day before, her boyfriend texted her something like, "Goodnight, princess."

"I am not a princess," she replied to him.  "I am a superhero historian scientist!"

"Okay," he said, teasing her.  "Goodnight superhero historian scientist princess!"

They got into a conversation about why girls are always called, "Princess."  Why NOT "superhero" or "scientist" or "astronaut"?

"Think about it, Mom," she said.  "Did you ever tuck me in and say, 'Goodnight my little astronaut?  NO!  Why?  Why do girls always have to be princesses???"

I had never really thought about it.  I did/do call my girls "princess," because what can be more special than a princess?  Think of the adjectives that "princess" calls to mind:  beautiful, delicate, sweet, dainty, lovely...I told her "princess" is an endearing term, that she shouldn't take it so negatively, that it's a way guys (and parents) show affection to the girls they love. She wasn't buying.

"Mom, a princess is someone you dress up in pretty clothes and marry away to a prince, who will become king.  So, yeah, she'll be queen one day, but she'll still only be second best!"

She bemoaned how society boxes little girls into pink and purple and princess, exclaiming, "Girls should be thought of as explorers and scientists and superheroes!  If I have a daughter, I'm going to call her 'my superhero' not 'my princess'."

Claire does have a great point.  It reminded me of the time when she was in first grade when she had to label a picture with the beginning sound it made.  There was a picture of a lady with a stethoscope around her neck and a cross on her hat.  Claire put "D" for doctor and got it wrong because it was "N" for nurse.  She was mad.  Her doctor is a female, and in Claire's mind, and rightly so, she saw a doctor.  I told the teacher her reasoning, but the teacher was old school and wouldn't budge.  "We were working on 'Ns'," the teacher said.

After contemplating our conversation about princesses and how we start so young indoctrinating our girls into the princess culture, I see that Claire is right:  She IS a superhero historian scientist.  I just hope whoever ends up sitting at her right hand is okay with sharing power because this girl isn't going to be second to anyone!

Other People's Dog Poop

I don't have a dog for a reason:  Three of us in our family are allergic to them.  But even if we weren't allergic, I still wouldn't have a dog because, well, I don't really like them.  Please don't hate me.  I'm sorry.  I've tried to like dogs.  We had a basset hound when I was a kid, and she was great, but even then, I really only liked her ears.

And as I've gotten older, I have pretty much stopped liking dogs altogether.

Don't get me wrong.  I like looking at dogs.  I think they are cute.

                                     

I know they are helpful.  They are great companions for kids and assistants for the disabled.  They rescue people and sniff out explosives and aid our soldiers in their jobs.

But they stink.  And they shed.  And slobber.  And poop great poops in the yard that have to be scooped up, usually by an adult, and carried down the street in a Kroger bag while the dog trots merrily along on a leash.  This visual is always amusing to me for some reason, but I digress.

You can imagine my frustration and utter disgust when yesterday, while working in my yard, my dog-free yard, I stepped in a big ol' pile of shit.  It squished up into the treads of my shoes and along the sides and sat there stinking.  I threw my clippers down in anger and dragged my shoe in the grass trying to get the worst out before I trekked over to the hose to clean the poop off.  I hosed it down, but it still stinks.

I don't care if you have a dog.  If you don't mind the smell and the hair and the slobber and the crap, knock yourself out.  Have 10 dogs.  Just keep them out of my yard, please, or if they have to take a dump here, pick it up and carry it home to your own trash can, because I don't want to be stepping in other people's dog poop.

Now. Not When September Ends

It's my melancholy time of year.  "Wake Me Up When September Ends" has been my theme song for this season.  Summer vacation is drawing to a close, and with it, the carefree days spent with my kids.  Soon we will find ourselves in a routine of school, dance class, volleyball practice, and homework.  I will be alone during the day once again, and when the kids are home, we will not have the time that we do now.  Kyle will be back at school, and his presence here will be missed.  I need to find something constructive to do to occupy myself, so I don't keep dreading the fall.

We didn't do a lot other than chill.  I mean, okay, we went to Europe for 10 days, but other than that, we just kind of hung out at home.  One day we went to Frankfort.  We went to the movies.  We went to the pool a couple of times.  The kids went to friends' houses or had friends over.  We stayed up late and slept in.  It was a relaxing summer, and while I sort of wish we would have done more stuff, I kind of liked just being home with the buzzing of activity that comes with three teenagers zipping about.

July, August, and September are how I count years now.  January 1st means nothing but the change of year in my check book.  But July, August, and September...Those months mark so many significant dates for me...Four years since Dad died...my birthday (another year older...ugh!)...seven years since Kris died...ten years since Mom...Wasn't I just dropping Kyle off at kindergarten?  I was pregnant with Emily, and I can remember Claire crying in the backseat, "I want Kyle!" as we pulled away.  Now fourteen years later, Emily is starting our final year at Holy Trinity.  What?  Claire with bows in her hair every day of first grade.  Emily and Ethan and our weekly lunch dates after preschool.  Where did the time go?

These months always make me reflective.  Remembering Mom's and Dad's last days, both so different, but each just as final.  The call from Pete that Kris had passed...I had just taken the kids to the state fair.  My birthdays.  Haven't I just turned 30?  How can I almost be 48?  My life is half over. What have I done with it?

See what I mean?

Every year this time is the same thing.  Sadness.  Melancholy.  Dread.

I hate the cold days and the long, dark nights.  I hate the bare trees and monochrome landscape that is winter.  I hate the layers of clothes and shoes that come with it.  Even though there are still many weeks until this reality, August reminds me that it is coming.  The occasional yellow leaf on a tree.  The odd cool morning.  The quiet in my house when the kids are back in school.

I know this about myself.  I get in a bad mood every year, and I don't like that.  Instead, this year, I will try to embrace this day.  This moment with my kids, my flowers, my summer evening.

I'm making plans for this fall.  I am heading to Boston for a few days at the end of August to visit my sweet Aunt Nanette and Uncle Jim.  I did that a couple of years ago, and it was such a wonderful visit and a great buffer between the end of summer and the start of school.

I hope to take my dear Aunt Jeri to West Virginia to see her daughter/my cousin.  I've been wanting to go, and she has no way to get there.  I can take her, so I think I am.

I'd like to go to Missouri to see Rocky Ridge where Laura Ingalls Wilder and her husband Almanzo lived.  I've seen her home on Plum Creek and have been to DeSmet, South Dakota and seen those places.  Missouri is next.

I may start a gratitude journal to remind me how truly blessed I am, how much I have to be thankful for, how fantastic my life is.

I do know that I don't want to sleep through September.

Uncle Joe, RIP

Uncle Joe, Uncle Bob, Aunt Nanette, Dad about 2006

My Uncle Joe died today.  He was 89 and 6 months.  I add the 6 months because he was determined to make it to 90.  Nearly every time I saw him lately, he would comment that he hoped he could at least make it to his next birthday, because he had to outlive his brother, Bob, who had died 4 months short of 90 while sitting on the couch. After that he didn't care; he just didn't want to linger.

He almost made it.

Not sure if he died from his COPD/emphysema or the aneurism in his aorta.  It doesn't matter.  He passed peacefully, sitting on his sofa in his pajamas, almost exactly like his brother.

He was one of the most interesting people I have ever known.  He was an artist, a free-spirit, a raconteur.  He was one of the lucky elderly who had his mind until the end.  He had a joke for every occasion and a story to match.  Often you wouldn't know if he was telling a joke or a true tale.  He would start out, "That reminds me of the time I was in this little pub in Ireland..."  And he had been in many little pubs in Ireland or France or Spain, so what he was about to tell could possibly be true, but 9 times out of 10, it was the set up for a fantastic joke.  I can't remember a single one, but he had hundreds tucked away in his mental file cabinet and could pull them out with ease.

He joined the Army Air Corps during World War 2 and trained to be a waist gunner in a B-17.  He was supposed to be shipped over to Europe to fight the Germans, but the war ended before he could leave.  He then got orders to head to the Pacific to battle the Japanese, but Japan surrendered, so he didn't go there either.  I think at one time, he might have had a little regret that he "missed out," but as an older man, he realized how lucky he was.  I can't imagine him fighting in a war.  He had too gentle of a soul for killing.

He led a most fascinating life, residing for awhile in Paris after the war.  He told the story about a time when he was sitting in a little cafe off the beaten path (yes, this one is true) when who should sit at the table next to him but Tennessee Williams!  He said he looked up, and who should be walking across the street loaded with books but Truman Capote.  He thought to himself, "Holy cow!  I wonder what kind of literary tete-a-tete I'll hear today!" and scooted a little closer to the authors' table.  Capote walked up to Williams and plopped his armload of books on the table and said simply,  "I'm pooped!"  Uncle Joe got a big kick out of that.

He was a glass is half full kind of guy.  An eternal optimist.  He had a full head of mostly black hair and wore glasses on a chain around his neck, which he needed mostly just for reading.   He was the last of my relatives to kiss me on both cheeks, the French way after my grandmother.  He always called me "Dear."

Uncle Joe could build just about anything.  He loved plumbing for the "puzzle-like" problems it presented.  He was using a jigsaw up until last year to build a desk for his computer and a work bench for his art but then the dust got to be too much for his lungs.

His closet was full of navy blue shirts and khaki pants with the occasional black or dark green shirt.  He said having all his clothes the same color cut down on decision-making and simplified his life.

He loved to cook.  He made Spanish rice and apple tarts and just recently, I got him some fresh rhubarb and cinnamon sticks so he could stew them together without ruining the nice pink color of the rhubarb.  He liked grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup from Panera, bread from Blue Dog Bakery, and bourbon, any kind.

He painted like a boss.  Watercolor in his later life, oil in the early years.  I hung rows of paintings in the hallway of his last apartment and other assorted paintings around the family room.  They were like snapshots of his travels through Canada, France, Spain, Ireland, the Bahamas, wherever he had been.  If the light fell a certain way along a hedgerow of arborvitae or against the side of a barn, he painted it.  He made amazing collages of tickets and napkins and programs of events.  He collected folk art and old editorial cartoons.  He read the New Yorker and had email and knew how to surf the web.

He donated his body to UofL School of Medicine.  He had been a professor, chairman of the art department at the University of Kentucky for many years.  He said he taught students in life and wanted to continue teaching after he died.  "I won't need my body anymore," he said.  "If I can continue to educate after I'm gone, why not?"

That was just the kind of guy he was.

I wish I could meet with the students who will learn from him over the next few weeks and months.  I would like to tell them that this was not just some 89 year old guy with COPD.  He was an extraordinary gentleman, a gentle and kind man, the kind that they don't really make anymore.  Be good to him.  Learn from him.  Then go out and make the world a better place.  That would make him happy.

Raising Kids to Let Them Go

My mom will have been dead 10 years in September.  My kids were 9, 6, and almost 4 when she left us, and as a young mom, I thought I would be okay because I figured I had the parenting thing under control.  My kids were well-adjusted, polite, inquisitive, and kind.  I knew I would miss her, but I thought I would miss her most at parties and holidays and babysitting.  I thought there wasn't much more she could teach me because parenting in the 2000s was so much different than the 1970s and 80s.

We had already had our spats about why I limited my kids' cartoon watching.  "I never limited how many cartoons you all watched," she had stated.  True, but when we were kids, there wasn't a whole network devoted to cartoons that ran 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.  Our cartoons were Scooby Doo and Bugs Bunny and Tom and Jerry (after school from 3-6 and on Saturday mornings until noon), not The Fairly Odd Parents and The Simpsons and Dexter's Laboratory.

And video games.  Sheesh!  We had Atari with Pac-Man and Donkey Kong and pixelated frogs trying to get across a busy road.  I had to worry about my kids going to someone's house where an older sibling was shooting policemen and raping unsuspecting women and dropping F-bombs all in graphic detail on their 48 inch plasma screen tv.

And then there were cell phones.  Facebook.  Texting.  Instant messaging.  Instagram.  Snapchat.  Twitter.  Vine.  The list goes on.  My mom would have been no help at all in wading through the cesspool that is social media, I thought.  Except that she was.  She had raised me to be a decent, caring, responsible person who behaved when no one was looking and did the right thing because it was expected.  And even though she was gone, her influence on me, and thus, my children, came down through the decades.  I have the same expectations of my kids that my mom had of me, and for the most part, they rise to the occasion.

These middling years, figuring it out on my own how to get the kids through as unscathed as possible, has been challenging, but I think I'm doing an okay job.  We've had some detours and a few bumps in the road, but we are on track for some responsible, well-adjusted adults heading out on their own to make their ways in life.

And this is where I realize that I could really use my mom right now, because how in the world do you let your kids go?  It doesn't matter if you are a 19th century mother sending your son west on horseback across the Allegheny Mountains or a mother in Ireland watching your daughter sail to America with all she owns in a brown leather trunk or a Kentucky mom leaving your daughter on the steps of her  boyfriend's house in the middle of Central Texas while you head the 1000 miles back home.

Mom and me, on one of her first trips to visit me in Texas, fall 1991.

How do you let go?

Because that is the way it's supposed to be, right?  I'm supposed to raise my kids and send them off to live lives of their own making, hopefully happy, productive lives, but their lives nonetheless.

So when I hear Kyle say he wants to leave Kentucky and go to Chicago or New York or Germany, I have to be open to that.  When I hear Claire, two years left here at home, talk about colleges in California or Pennsylvania or Tennessee, my job is to help facilitate that, to make sure that she is equipped to fly and then watch her sail into the distance.  When I think of Emily as the last child at home, probably for only 5 more years, I feel panic rise and have to take some deep breaths.  The time with them is slipping through my fingers like sand, and  I have to remind myself that my job as a mother is to raise my kids and set them free.  If I do a good job, then they leave because I have equipped them with the skills and confidence to lead lives of worth and value.

But damn it's hard.  It's hard to create these beautiful creatures that I love with every fiber of my being and then let them go.  They are my joy.  My life.  And I want to ask my mom, "How do you do it???  How did you let me go?  How did you physically get in the car and drive away?" I remember the deep sense of loss I felt as a daughter watching the car turn the corner and disappear, but now that I'm a mother, I just cannot imagine leaving my child to a life of her choosing, so far away from me.

So even though Mom would be no help with much of what I deal with as a parent today, I really wish I could ask her how to let go, because I just don't know how I will be able to do it.

The kids and me.  New Orleans, January 2015.

Hiking

I hiked again yesterday, and this time, I wasn't bringing up the rear until the very end.  And I'm not too sore to walk today.  Progress!  It has taken me a few fits and starts to get going, but it has been one of the best things I have done for myself in a long time.

After my scare in January with the mammogram-biopsy-everything-was-fine-thank-god, I decided to make some changes in my life.  One of the things I knew I needed to do was get moving.  I H.A.T.E. to exercise.  I'm very uncoordinated, so any type of group class is out of the question.  I don't enjoy running.  Never have. Never will.  Walking is so boring that I can't wait to be done, and I usually quit before I go more than 45 minutes.  I am awful at sports.  Love to watch, but totally can't play.  My options for getting my body moving were limited.

A couple of my friends hiked once a week, and I thought it could be fun to get out in nature with them.  I could maybe, maybe overcome my fear of snakes to begin to enjoy being on a trail in the woods.  I could meet some new people, make better friends, have some accountability...I decided to try it.

The first couple of weeks after I called my friend, Julie, to ask if I could join in, we had snow and really, really cold weather, so we didn't hike.  When things finally warmed up, hiking started again, and I was there, ready to move.  Only I had no idea that we MOVED!

We drove out to Waverly Park, my old stomping ground, and hiked.  Holy smokes!  It was cold that day, but after about 5 minutes of trying to keep up with Amy and Sarah, I was huffing and puffing and had broken out in a little bit of a sweat.  I had fancied myself in decent shape until that morning.  I was wildly mistaken!  Those ladies left me in the dust!  Not really, Julie hung back with me, and they would wait until we caught up every mile or so, but dang, I had no idea that this was what they meant by HIKING.  I texted my sister that I was bringing up the way rear, and she said, "Be the cow tail!"   I texted back that it was a long-ass cow!

The best thing about that day was that it was cold, so I didn't even worry about seeing a snake.  And I felt proud of myself for getting out there and making an effort.  We talked (when I could breathe!) and laughed and marveled at the beauty that I had no idea was Waverley (since I'd never been anywhere but the parking lot!)

I couldn't really move my legs for about 4 days after that, but the next week, I was game for Charlestown State Park in Indiana.

Again, we HIKED, but we did it in segments.  The trails were a couple of miles long each but not connected, so we would drive from one to the other.  It was a nice respite from continuous hiking.  Beautiful there too, with views of the Ohio River and old army depot ruins...a hidden gem!

I was the cow tail again, but like my sister said the week before, I had to start somewhere.

A minor surgery the following Tuesday kept me out for a couple of weeks then a repair to a leaky kitchen pipe (it was actually a big leak in the wall behind the cabinets, but that's a story for another day...) and then yesterday was the next time I could hike.  It's amazing what three weeks in spring can do to the woods.

We went to Cherokee Park, close because we all had somewhere to be before noon.  We started at Big Rock and hit the trails running (almost).  I was able to hang in the middle for most of the hike.  There were 3 ladies who were a few yards in front, and a few more ladies several yards behind.  I was by myself in the group, alone with my thoughts and my breathing.  It was nice.

As I climbed the rocks along Beargrass Creek, I thought of my dad as a little boy playing here, swimming, finding arrowheads enough to fill a shoebox.  I could see him splashing in the water, jumping off Big Rock, a child of the '30s enjoying the freedom of a kid in those days.  I thought of the native people who had camped here for thousands of years before the settlers arrived.  I looked for remnants of their existence, an overlooked arrowhead or a charred mark on the overhang. Didn't find anything but had fun looking.

As we crossed over roadways and skirted neighborhoods, I looked at the mansions that border the park.  I considered the people who live there now and wondered about the original inhabitants, what they do/did to have such a beautiful residence.  I imagined Daisy Buchanan gazing out a window after Jay Gatsby; or the well-heeled Louisville society people sipping after dinner drinks on the patios of an evening.

We hiked on.  We passed a meadow being converted into a bird sanctuary, blooming with wildflowers.  Skirted I-64 and the Cochran Hill Tunnel, cars zipping by not 50 yards away, the drivers oblivious to the half dozen or so women sweating it out on the trails above.  Saw box turtles (2) and a deer resting in the dappled shade of the deep woods.  I was able to tune out all of the noise of the cars and the neighborhoods and concentrate on the birds warbling in the trees.  The woodpeckers going to town on some half-rotted tree trunk full of bugs.  The sound of Beargrass as it fell over rocks.  Who knew all of this was within 5 miles of downtown Louisville?  It was amazing!

And in all of this, I did think of snakes, but we were moving too fast for me to look for them.  Unless one was on the trail right in front of me, I wouldn't have seen it, and that is a good thing!  Plus, you can imagine that all of us together make quite enough noise to scare away any animal that has sense enough or speed to get out of our way.

So, I will continue with the hikes.  I do slow down once in awhile to take a picture or two.  It is part of me capturing my journey, both on the trail and in my life.

Voices from the Past

I decided to break out the box of letters written to my dad when he was away at boarding school in the 1940s.  There is something to be said about opening a piece of paper on which a letter was written 70 years ago and seeing the handwriting of the author or the mistakes typed over or crossed out.  Little drawings on the outside of the envelope charm me as do the doodles in the margins and the swirl of the signature.  I love the feel of the onion skin paper and looking at the 3 cent stamps.  This is all lost, I fear, with our digital age, but that is a story for another day.

Dad left at age 14 for freshman year at Campion High School in Prairie du Chien, Wisconsin.  He came home at Christmas and for summer.  I am about halfway through the first group of letters from 1946, and I've been picking and choosing ones from my grandmother and grandfather to my dad.  My grandmother mostly typed hers, and my grandfather wrote in fountain pen, which has blurred over the ages.  I've read some letters from Dad's brother, Bob, and his sisters, Nanette and Marie.  It is fun to read about things that would never occur in our lives---getting a gas furnace for the first time, flying to Europe instead of taking the steamer, or praying for a boy who had contracted polio.  I had no idea there was a meat shortage in 1946, much less a shortage of soap and toilet paper.  It was truly a different time.

I wanted to share some excerpts that struck me as poignant, interesting, and insightful.  In several letters, Dad is urged to conserve paper and stamps.  Write on the backs of the pages.  Put two or three letters in each envelope and just send mail twice a week.  It is a recurring theme, usually just a sentence.  I only put one specific entry below, but I thought it worth mentioning because it was such a common thread.  It is all so interesting to me.  I have left the grammatical errors and misspellings because I feel like they also give insight to the author.  My grandmother, for example, was a native French speaker, and English was not her second language, but her fourth, as she spoke Spanish and Catalan second and third.  My dad's name was spelled "Johnny" and "Johnnie" by everyone, sometimes both ways in the same letter.   I have not figured out why.   I am sure there will be more excerpts as I read on, but this is a start...

Louisville  Aug. 29/46
You have been gone 2 days already and I still cannot believe it.  I hear your friends playing outside and, somehow, I can hear your voice mingled with theirs...Affectionately yours, Mother


Louisville  Sept. 5, 1946
Glad to hear that the food is excellent and plentiful.  You ought to feel satisfied with so much milk, - I know how much you love it.  Our milk order has been reduced from 10 to 8 quarts since you left...Very affectionately yours, Mother


New York  September 7, 1946
As the Commander in Chief is again on the move, the "family broadcasts" are being resumed, copies of this one going to Bobby and to Johnnie...I imagine Mama has sent you a little cash, but nevertheless am enclosing a dollar bill that I did not know what to do with...P.S. Discovered when I removed the first page from typewriter that carbons were in the wrong position.  Nevertheless am sending Johnny a copy that he can read by getting some light behind it...Dad


Louisville  September 8, 1946
Are you going out for any sports?  I hope so.  And, I'd try to concentrate on basketball and baseball if I were you.  After having played football, I find that I had a swell time, but I don't think its worth the chance you have to take.  Basketball and baseball offer the competition without the opportunities to get your knee pulled out of joint or a shoe in your face...Bobby, Mary Louise, and Jimmy


Louisville  Sept. 9, 1946
Do not use so much paper when you write,-but write on both sides to save it...About returning by plane, _with your pals,-at Xmas time, we'll see about this later on,-there is plenty of time to decide on this, don't you think so?  With much love from everyone here, yours affectionately, Mother

Louisville  12  Sept. '46

The movies of Aline's return to Louisville were fine, also the other movies of Mother & Dad.  You'll be glad, I know, to see these reels when you return.  By that time, we may have to add your own picture.  Maybe we can take pictures of you as you get off the train in Louisville next Xmas!  Your ole pal, Marie

Louisville  Sept. 16, 1946

Well, I got a great surprise last night, when we got a cable from Daddy from PARIS...We did not know he was going to fly at all, but he got disgusted waiting in N.Y. for the strike to end, and he suddenly made up his mind to get a ticket for Paris.  He left Saturday at seven p.m. from La Guardia Field, and into Paris 20 hours later, that is about 2 p.m. our time, but 8 p.m. Paris time...It was almost a shock to me, and I'm glad I did not know about it, for I would never have slept the night...Affectionately yours, Mother

Louisville  Sept. 25/1946

I have some bad news to give you about Bert Cohen,-he is at Kosair Hospital with polio,-he has been there for 4 or 5 weeks,-it is in his throat that he has it, and he is in a serious condition, also a cousin of his, from whom he got it,-they were together over a weekend, and both became sick at the same time. Pray for the poor little fellow.  Affectionately yours, Mother

Louisville  Oct. 3, 1946

Your old friend Bertha came to see me this noon.  She would like to work for me, I think, but the poor old soul has trouble with her feet (flat feet) and a sprained hip and back, so I am afraid Bertha could not help much.  She inquired about you and talked about when you were a baby...She said she would love to see you.  She surely was a loyal servant.

The meat situation is getting from bad to worse, but it does not worry me at all, for we can eat all we need with vegetables, fruit, salads, and cheese or eggs, fish and an occasional chicken...What about the thousands of people, all over the world, who would feast with what we are able to get here...And to think that so many do complain yet...and so many make the line everyday for hours to get a few ounces of red meat...what a loss of precious time indeed.  Usually they are the same bunch of women who, day after day, go to the stores waiting for meat...Soap is again very scarce with us, guess some do hoard and hoard, the same with toilet paper and margarine.  Butter is now 89 cents a lb...One cannot get margarine at all, nowhere.  Much love, Mother

Louisville  October 8, 1946
Your report card came too, with 2 Bs and 2 Cs, -there is cause to be glad at these marks too, and I feel sure that if you work a little harder and apply yourself a little more to your studies, also doing some reading, you will most probably get many more Bs and, who knows, you might surprise us with one or 2 As. This would be wonderful. You have the intelligence to do so, and I know that you will endeavor to do your very best, your utmost, in order to get higher marks...With love again, affectionately yours, Mother


Louisville  October 23, 1946
All the trees around us are gold and brown, and the wind of yest. and to-day has brought large quantities of leaves down, and the ground is littered with them, it is very beautiful indeed, but one has to rake them off quickly and burn them, as they are dangerous when they get too dry.  I made a wire basket with the piece of high fencing we had in the yard, and in this manner leaves can be burned  off without danger, even when it is windy...Your affectionate mother


Louisville  Nov. 3/46
Wish I could drive to Campion to see you too, perhaps when Daddy returns, if the weather allows it...we might take a trip...although he will be very busy upon his return to the office with piles of accumulated work...We have an extension phone upstairs since yesterday, -it is a great convenience, as it will save our steps...Burt Cohen is well again he was very fortunate in getting over his troubles...Well, the furnace is finally installed and working, but the weather is so mild that we do not need any heat a present....It works automatically, so no more ashes to take out, no more shoveling coal- no more dirty hands fixing the furnace...no more dirt in the basement and less dust in the rooms...Affectionately yours, Mother


Louisville  November 15, 1946
How many girls do you write anyhow?  Jane said you told her she didn't write the kind of letters you thought she would write.  Please explain yourself...Do they make you write book reports up there?  As I just said we have one every month.  I hope they do because I really don't believe you know how to read...Oodles of love, Nanette


Louisville  December 4, 1946
As you surmised, we had a very good Thanksgiving dinner, with a beautiful roasted turkey, tender and juicy, with all the trimmings.  The entire family were on hand, including Hugh, also Joey, both of whom came home for the weekend, the only absentee being yourself, and naturally we all missed your smile, not to mention the valuable assistance that you have always rendered on such occasions.

I imagine that mama has told you that the new gas furnace is functioning very well, so you can realized how much the work of keeping the house warm has been reduced, in fact work has been entirely eliminated, and besides that everything is cleaner, including the air in the house...Affectionately, Dad