The lectures continue

Tuesday (September 14, 1976)

Dear Robin

I'm sorry I forgot to send your savings book.

I went to Nora's last Wednesday and stayed until Saturday morning. I really had a good time and caught some fish - one real nice catfish. Bobby ate it and said it was the best he ever had.

I wasn't feeling very well when I left there Saturday and by the time I got home I was real sick. My stomach was upset and I had a lot of fever. It didn't last long. I felt much better by Monday. Lisa, Callie and Karly all were sick yesterday - they have flu so I brought Grant home with me for the afternoon.

Night before last I had another one of my nightmares. Since you were not here to wake me I don't know how much yelling I did but it was some weird dream.

I'm sure you had a good time at the ball game especially since Tech won.

I haven't felt like getting that telephone paper signed yet. I did want to know though if I am signing for both of you. Also I must make a little mother talk and say that it is very easy to run up a big bill when you are fooling around with Ma Bell. Direct dialing just seems to make you forget that every second you talk cost money.

I finished the birds I was working on so I'm going to have to get me something else. There is a kit with two pictures in that same kind of work that I want to get next. Also I have an idea I'm working on to use my old calendars on my Christmas tree skirt.

I haven't been watching the shows very much so I don't know what's happening. I did see a little of General Hospital yesterday and Tom Baldwin is alive in prison in Mexico. He has a lot of hair and beard but it's not the same Tom. That old story of someone being dead and brought back is worn out.

It's time to see what I can find to eat for lunch.

Love,

Mother

Back in the day before cell phones, you had a land-line telephone in your dorm room (some dorms had one phone for a group of rooms!) and you shared it with your roommate. You couldn't make long-distance calls without permission from your parents - long distance calling was expensive and they wanted to know that someone was going to foot the bill! I have never been a big telephoner - I'm not sure what she was worried about. My roommate rarely made long distance calls. 

                                                                                    (clickamericana.com)

"Ma Bell," otherwise known as the phone company, had an ad campaign in the late 1970s and 1980s with the tagline, "Reach out and touch someone." Not exactly appropriate for the pandemic!

General Hospital was and still is an ABC soap opera. Here's some more information on Tom Baldwin in case you don't remember back to 1976! I haven't watched General Hospital in years and years. Probably not since my daughter was a toddler (she's 28 now) and napped in the afternoons. I tried to watch one day recently - just couldn't get into it.

Making Trip Plans

Tuesday (September 7, 1976)

Dear Robin

I just got your letter and you got a couple of letters from the bank so I opened them to see if there was anything about your social security. It's a good thing I did because now I won't have to loan you any. It didn't take them so long after all.

I've been cutting the grass and watering outside all morning now I'm washing some clothes and then I'm going to shower and then go to the store. Tomorrow I think I'll go to Lakehills. N calls every day or so wanting to know when I'm coming. I'm thinking of taking the cats and Holly with me so I can stay a few days.

Yesterday L, K, and I went to North Star Mall - there was an art show. It was really crowded out there; all the stores were having Labor Day sales. I didn't buy anything. The rest of the weekend I mostly watched TV - tennis and golf.

It sounds as if you and your new roommate are getting along pretty good.

If you need anything while I'm at N's her number is (XXX) XXX-XXXX. You can have the call charged to this number here at home. You can also call me when you want to - you don't have to just need something.

Love,

Mother

Taking the city cats (John Boy and Jim Bob) and Holly (fox terrier) on a trip to a ranch where there are kids, cows, deer, and lots of other dogs and cats? Oh, this will be an adventure!

You may leave home, but the Mom Lectures will find you.

Thursday (September 2, 1976)

Dear Robin,

I really was glad to get your letter. I have mailed two to you but I put your room number on them so I hope you got them.

I don't know how often I will be able to write to you - there is just not that much to write about. I went to Lisa's for supper Tuesday and Grant missed you very much. Every time I see him he keeps asking where you are. He can't understand why you don't come home from school like you did before.

It sounds as if you have some very interesting courses but hard. 

I know that getting high grades has never meant much to you or seemed important but it is to most people and when you get out of school your grade records may have a lot to do with your getting a job.

Gary and Donna were on the south side of town yesterday and she called. She said Julie is doing fine. She is going to Tammy's for Labor Day. 

I really enjoyed the trip to Lubbock. If I had been able to sleep more at the motel I would not have been very tired at all.

I went with Myra and Howard to see what that 1 hour golf is all about. It doesn't seem as if it would be too much fun but it would be good practice.

I talked to Nora yesterday she said she has had her hair cut real short. Bobby wouldn't speak to her at first but he finally admitted that it looked sexy. I promised I'd go up there next week.

Well I had better get this out for the mail man to pick up.

Write often.

Love

Mother

Bank Robbery?

Monday Morning (August 30, 1976)

Dear Robin

I was wondering all weekend what you were doing. Lisa and I went to an antique show at Wonderland Saturday afternoon. Yesterday it was raining off and on all day. We didn't have much rain but the northwest part of town had a flood. The other night when Ricci Ware was giving the weather he said someone from Roosevelt had called asking about the weather in Lubbock - their children had just gone there to school.

I got me a new piece of work it is a picture in filo of three cute little titmice on some branches. I thought it would be easy but there are so many of those tiny little lines that I get cross eyed trying to see them.

I don't know what is the trouble with these cats - they keep getting into fights. I think it's Jim Bob who yells the most so I guess John Boy must be the winner.

Some one must have found out that you put all your money in American State because they tried to rob it last week.

I have so many jobs I want to get started on I guess I'll have to write them all down and draw one out of a hat so I'll know where to get started. 

But right now I have to pay bills.

Love,

Mother

Mom enclosed the newspaper article about the bank incident. Glad no one was hurt and my whopping $300 balance was safe!

I found this picture on eBay of the filo embroidery kit she got for her new "piece of work." I wish I had the finished project - I'm thinking my sister may have it. I have a filo owl that she did that needs to be framed that was a kit that I bought her for a birthday or Mother's Day. Not exactly sure why it's called "filo," but it has something to do with the pen-and-ink look of the final product.

She always had some kind of handwork - embroidery or crochet going.

Love, Mother

I went away to college in 1976. I was graduated from high school in 1975 but spent my freshman year living at home and attending the local community college. My mom wrote letters (yes, actual paper letters!) to me at school several times a week, starting the day after she and my sister dropped me off at the dorm. I was the last of her six children to leave home and I guess it came as quite a life-changing experience. 

I saved most of the letters. When Shelly Pagliai started her Hazel's Diary blog I thought about including my mom's letters in my blog and now, only TEN years later, I'm actually doing it. Where did the last ten years go? So much has changed in that time.

Anyway, here we go with her first letter to me.

August 25, 1976

Dear Robin,

Wednesday

We left the motel this morning about seven - had some coffee and toast - then got the car gassed and we got to Lisa's about four thirty. We made a gas stop in San Angelo and we stopped in Mason - first at the Dairy Queen and then at the watermelon stand. The man said the melons were grown around there but the one I got didn't have the same taste I remembered. Then we went to the cemetery. I didn't have any trouble finding the graves. The Wood lot, which is enclosed in an ornamental iron fence, was overgrown with weeds. I hope to go back there when it gets cooler and clean it.

The animals were glad to see me and rewarded me by finishing off that grasshopper that they had already eaten on. I think they did it while I was asleep. After Nora and Lolly left I sat down to look at the paper and as you know I went to sleep. I didn't sleep much at the motel.

I hope you had an exciting day and didn't have too much trouble getting around.

Thursday

You won't believe that I slept until almost 7 o'clock this morning. I had to water all my plants then Lisa called. We went to a place called Gardendale. It's on a road off Nacogdoches way out near where that new bridge is. It is a vegetable farm and sort of health food store and they also have some herbs. Lisa wanted some okra to pickle but they didn't have any. Her friend MJ went with us and she suggested we go to that herb farm at Helotes. It is an interesting place. I didn't buy anything at either place. After her car stopped at an antique store we had a barbeque sandwich in Helotes. She had to restrain her car from stopping at some more antique shops but it was getting late and she had to get home before Karly. I guess we will have to go back again.

I'm very anxious to hear all about what you are doing.

Good luck tomorrow.

Love,

Mother

I recently finished this crazy quilt (à la Brian Haggard) using pictures I took when Dave and I visited the cemetery Mom talks about in her letter. The big picture is not actually the Wood lot, I just liked that big tree. The three pictures at the bottom of the quilt are from family headstones. The gate below is my depiction in embroidery of the gate of the Wood lot.

The Parsonage Projects

Last summer, my husband became the part-time pastor of a small church in a small town about an hour from our home.  He spends a couple of days here during the week and then we're both here Friday through Sunday.  We have house-sitters in our house in town while we're here.

Fortunately, the church has a parsonage that we've enjoyed staying at. It's almost - but not quite - like having a vacation house.  There was no furniture when we arrived, so it's a pretty Spartan vacation house and it's not exactly a vacation-type setting, but it's quiet and peaceful and we are enjoying our time here.  Church members have donated some "vintage" furniture, so we have quite an eclectic vibe going on here - everything from mid-century modern to the 1970s to today!

We intentionally decided on not having a television here.  We can stream TV and movies on our laptops when we want to, or we can listen to the radio or read or we can just be quiet.  Typically, I have some kind of work to do when I get here.  It's a great place to work on grant proposals or marketing materials for the capital campaigns I work on in my "outside" life. Sometimes I have trouble working from home because I'm easily distracted by laundry, cooking, cleaning, Dr. Phil re-runs, eating, errands, yardwork, house projects, more cleaning, more laundry and anything else that I think needs to be done right that minute.  Those don't really apply here, well, except for the cooking and eating and a small amount of laundry and cleaning.

Of course, there's no way I could spend any amount of time anywhere and not have something crafty or quilty to do.  Over the months I've brought crochet, English paper piecing, embroidery and small quilts to work on.  I've had to get creative with my set-up.  I have a small sewing machine that is my "travel" machine and I've set it up in the bedroom that was supposed to be (at least in my mind) "the pastor's study" on a desk donated by a church member.  Dave prefers the kitchen table - more room to spread out.  And he does spread out!

However, if he's using every inch of the kitchen table, I can't use it as a cutting or ironing area.  I can set up one of those mini ironing boards on the kitchen counter and that works pretty well.

Last weekend I discovered that the laundry room makes a perfect cutting area.  My 18x24 mat fits perfectly in a little "indented" area (I can't think what else to call it) on top of the dryer and I can lay out small quilts on the top of the washer.  There are bright overhead lights in this room and a huge window (just to the right of this picture), so the light is just perfect.  Can't do huge projects there, but can do small ones really easily.

This little quilt is the latest of what I call my "parsonage projects."  It's a little doll quilt/table top/wall quilt that I will probably/maybe put on etsy or Ebay when it's complete.  Its made mostly of civil war type prints.  I just realized this morning, though, that I didn't bring any pins with me this week.  Off to the WalMart in the next town, I guess.

Pumpkin Spice Battenberg

I made a Pumpkin Spice Battenberg from a recipe in this month's Southern Living magazine.  Generally, I love the recipes in Southern Living because they're very well tested in the magazine's test kitchens and they're usually delicious and fairly easy in spite of the fact that they typically have a jillion ingredients.

I didn't know what a Battenberg was before I saw the picture in the magazine, but the minute I saw it I wanted to make it.  I've been baking since I was very young and fancy baking has been somewhat of a hobby of mine in the past.  It's a hobby I've sort of departed from as the healthier eating movement invaded the world.  My husband does not eat sweets - at all - so when I bake something, either I eat it all, which is very not good or I give it away - which I love to do, or I take it to work, which I have done frequently in the past.

Dave and I have been reading a book called The Artist's Way, which has exercises in it that are supposed to help you become more creative.  One of the exercises is to write down 20 activities you love to do but maybe haven't done in a while.  Then you are supposed to choose two from the list and spend some time rediscovering them.  One of the activities I wrote down was baking.  I saw the recipe a few days after that.  I really enjoyed the whole process.  I enjoyed thinking about baking the cake and planning the baking and figuring out what I was going to do with the cake.  And I really enjoyed the actual baking.

My cake is pictured above, and Southern Living's is pictured here.  Of course they look very different!  For one thing, you can see how unevenly I divided the layers.  And for some reason, the portion of the batter I added the pumpkin mixture to became much more dense.  The marzipan I bought was not white, it was decidedly off-white. (Although it looks lighter in the photo.  Maybe theirs does too).  And there's no way I could have rolled it thinly enough to cover all six sides of the cake.  I had to settle for not having any marzipan on the bottom, which was really okay.

I didn't actually purchase the marzipan myself.  It was on the list when Dave did the shopping last week.  I told him what aisle it was on, but he still had a little trouble and since he couldn't find a store person (can anyone ever find an employee when you need one?) a nice couple shopping the same aisle helped him look.  One of them asked him what marzipan was exactly and he said he didn't know but thought it had something to do with pumpkin!  Funny!

I have to admit, I ate most of it.  I took several pieces to my sister and brother-in-law and Grace came over on Saturday and had some.  All said it was delicious.  I don't know if it made me more creative, but I certainly enjoyed eating it!