1986, July 28: Letter from Jed to G&H

One-page letter, hand-printed on three-hole-punched lined paper. I don’t know why I used printing rather than cursive.

Written not long after my high-school graduation.

At the top of this, Helen at some point wrote “Such a good letter,” which seems odd to me; the letter reads to me like a pretty ordinary what-I’m-up-to-and-thank-you letter, of the sort that (for example) Jay had written several of over the preceding couple of years. I’m inclined to suspect that Helen put more emphasis on this one primarily because I didn’t write very often. :(

At the end of this letter, I provided a new address; I’ve now added that to the map showing places that we lived. But it sounds like we were only there for less than a month before I went off to college. I have no memory of that house at all. It’s now a six-bedroom house; possibly it was someone else’s house that we were going to stay in for a while? Not sure.

28 July 1986

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

Jed in a cap and gown at high school graduation, shaking hands with the school principal.
Jed at graduation

Here is a picture of me at graduation. It didn’t come out as well as I had hoped; one of my friends had her parents take pictures of all of her friends, but they didn’t get one of me, so we had to get this picture from the professional photographer who was there. The man I’m shaking hands with is the principal, Jim Shroyer.

I had occasion to use the fold-up luggage (that you sent me) a few weeks ago, when a friend of mine took several of us up to his cabin in Tahoe. The luggage is incredibly useful. I’m not sure whether I ever sent you a thank-you for that, but if I didn’t, THANK YOU! I’m not sure I’ll be able to use the suit-rack piece, but the rest of it will come in handy...

I still don’t know if I’ll be able to go up there on my way to Swarthmore, and if I do, I don’t know how many days it should be... I’ll tell you when I find out (and if you have any time restrictions, pelase tell me—I don’t want to inconvenience you...). Anyway, I’m supposed to arrive at Swarthmore on x Aug. 27th...

Love,

Jed

P.S.: Did you hear we’re moving? the new address will be (as of the 1st or so):

Street address redacted by Jed

Palo Alto, CA 94303

Notes

graduation photo
I thought I had posted this photo among the old family photos I posted on Facebook at one point, but I’m not seeing it there, so I’ve added it to this post.
fold-up luggage
I had forgotten about that until I read this letter. I think it was a set of soft-sided luggage that had no internal structure, so it folded up small—essentially cloth bags.

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