1

April 15. 1958

Dear Mother and Daddy,

Thank you for the list of shower goodies. I will get
the notes off as soon as possible. Thank you also for the
check for the Avon things. Something is holding up the
shipment, as I was supposed to have gotten it around the
first or middle part of last week. I am phoning a friend of
mine to find out procedure, but she isn't home, so I will
just keep trying and watching her kitchen window.

Spent the morning trying to keep up on the roses and
sundry flowers that have survived from last year. We really
have calalilies, in and outside the house now. I was just
messing around, though, since we're going to do the really
heavy post-winter reorganization this coming weekend. We're
really hep on grass and calalilies, but as for the other stuff,
we plant, dig up, pick, and pinch back whatever and whenever
Jim's sisters tell us it should be done. This year we are
going to plant tomatoes and sweet peas, however. The weather
is so nice that I just like to get out and mess around in a
pair of shorts. It's a good example for Jeff, too, since he
thinks that going outside is pretty plebian. That, and having
to eat dog food out of a dog dish are two of his main gripes.
He doesn't seem to object to dog bones, however.

The three of us spent the weekend up at Jim's uncle's
place near Yuba City. He's got about a thousand chickens
and an orchard. Jim's mother loves to go fishing with them
and we usually go too, though this time, we spent all our
time giving the orchard its first spring discing with a
homemade tractor and a converted horse-disc. We do it every
time we go up there, and we've just about finished designing
our own tractor for the acreage that we're going to have someday
when we escape from the tract-builders. Poor Jeff had to
stay home and guard the machinery, since three in a Thunderbird
is plenty, without a fat beagle jumping around. Next time,
we're going to try and take him, since he could use the
exercise that all that space up there allows.

The rain has delayed it for four weeks, but racing season
finally gets underway this coming weekend. They always end
up starting late, because they are usually too optimistic
about the weather. The weather was all right last Friday
night, but they didn't have time to work the tracksurface,
since most of the equipment was under water during the worst
of the rain.

Well, today is the big day for sending in the missile
money. Considering the fact that we have not been keeping
joint records for the whole year, and that we have undergone