{"id":1086,"date":"1973-11-12T00:01:18","date_gmt":"1973-11-12T08:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/?p=1086"},"modified":"2022-07-03T14:21:28","modified_gmt":"2022-07-03T21:21:28","slug":"1973-november-12-december-7-more-kidmail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/1973\/11\/12\/1973-november-12-december-7-more-kidmail\/","title":{"rendered":"1973, November 12\u2013December 7: More kidmail"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

As I mentioned a couple of entries ago<\/a>, in mid- to late-1973 we moved to Santa Rosa and my parents started a foster home.<\/p>\r\n

This entry is another set of notes\/letters from me and Jay, some with art. The return address on all of these that have return addresses is our new Santa Rosa address, so we had definitely arrived there by mid-November, when the first note below is postmarked.<\/p>\r\n

It looks like the first two foster kids arrived around then as well, but you\u2019ll have to wait a few entries to hear much of anything about them.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

The first quasi-letter in this set (postmarked November 12, I think) is a drawing on a rather long piece of fairly heavy-weight light-green paper, with annotations written by Marcy, presumably transcribing what Jay told her.<\/p>\r\n

\"Fish<\/a>
Fish trap.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n
\r\n

To Grandma & Grandpa in Tacoma<\/p>\r\n

It\u2019s from Joaquin<\/p>\r\n

and we live in<\/p>\r\n

Sebastopol.<\/p>\r\n

It\u2019s a fish trap, Nuffun Else!<\/p>\r\n

That\u2019s all!<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

(Nitpick: We did not in fact live in Sebastopol; the new house (the foster home) was officially in Santa Rosa. But I gather it was somewhere near the border between Santa Rosa and Sebastopol.)<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Next one is a drawing by me on the same weight and width of paper, except tan instead of green. At some point, Helen wrote \u201cNov 73\u201d on it.<\/p>\r\n

\"Good<\/a>
Good machine.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

The caption says, in Marcy\u2019s handwriting:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

This is a good machine. It\u2019s a plug-in good machine. It does lots of good things for you when you\u2019re real lazy.<\/p>\r\n

In block capitals, in my handwriting:<\/span> LOVE JED<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

I still think that a machine that does good things for you when you\u2019re feeling lazy would be a good idea.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Next: A note from Jay, which apparently came with some other item (that was held together with glue?) but I don\u2019t know what that other item might\u2019ve been. Helen at some point wrote \u201cNov 23 \u201973\u201d on it.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

Dear Grandma & Grandpa,<\/p>\r\n

First, no drawing inside that glue. Don\u2019t open it. Look at it and see if it\u2019s dry<\/p>\r\n

Please write Marcy and me a letter. Yeh, and Jed too. love,<\/p>\r\n

Joaquin<\/p>\r\n

It\u2019s a great<\/u> huge<\/u> big<\/u> huge<\/u> giant<\/u> swimming<\/u> pool<\/u>!!!<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\"Swimming<\/a>
Swimming pool.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n

On the back of that page, it says:<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

If yuh have anovver cup just like yuh send Jed, send it to Wah-Keen. Just the same cup. If yuh have one send it to Joaquin.<\/p>\r\n

note by amanuensis: he refers to a plastic cup with ABC & 123 & some animal pictures. I\u2019ve looked & looked & finally told him he could ask you if you could find one something like it sometime. Many thanks.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

\r\n

Next up, a big sheet of brown paper (of a type that I\u2019ve always heard called newsprint<\/i>, but now I\u2019m not so sure that\u2019s the right word), roughly 16\" x 24\", folded into twelfths and mailed without an envelope, postmarked November 26.<\/p>\r\n

The drawing includes several instances of the outline of my hand.<\/p>\r\n

\"Rocket<\/a>
Rocket taking off.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n
\r\n

My hand is a rocket that\u2019s taking off into space. But before it takes off, it has to go up into space to see if there\u2019s any of those little things called meteors that I read about in a book called Rusty\u2019s Space Ship<\/u>. It goes off into space finally, and all the lines are the rocket\u2019s trails of fire. And they\u2019re kind of electricity tubes and they have to be attached to each other because they\u2019re all to the same rocket and they go to the same plug. And it finally lands on the Moon and comes back to Earth. And that\u2019s all.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

I don\u2019t remember Rusty\u2019s Space Ship<\/cite>. It was apparently published in 1957<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

The next letter is on clown-and-balloon stationery<\/a> (a slightly different drawing of a clown this time, but similar enough that I\u2019m not scanning this one), postmarked November 27, 1973.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

DEAR GRA-<\/p>\r\n

NDMA AND<\/p>\r\n

GRANDPA<\/p>\r\n

I LIKE YOU<\/p>\r\n

AND THA-<\/p>\r\n

NK YOU FOR THE<\/p>\r\n

BOOK YOU<\/p>\r\n

SENT ME AND<\/p>\r\n

JOAQUIN AND WE<\/p>\r\n

HAVE OUR FOSTE-<\/p>\r\n

R CHILDEREN.<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n

So at age five and a half, I had the capital letters down pretty well, and I knew about hyphens, but apparently didn\u2019t know that they\u2019re only to be used in certain places in a word.<\/p>\r\n

\r\n

The last letter in this set is postmarked December 7, 1973. It\u2019s on lined notepaper, but I wrote mostly sideways across the lines; most of each of the four pages was taken up by a drawing. The last of the four drawings is the same kind of squiggly-lines art as the rest of this kid art, but the first three are grids filled with Xs and Os in various combinations; I don\u2019t know if I was trying to copy a pattern that appeared on the blankets or something, or if I was just making up the patterns.<\/p>\r\n

\"Xs<\/a>
Xs and Os p. 1.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n
\"Xs<\/a>
Xs and Os p. 2.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n
\"Xs<\/a>
Xs and Os p. 3.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n
\"Xs<\/a>
Xs and Os p. 4.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\n
\r\n

DEAR GRANDPA THANK YOU FOR THE LETTER. LOVE JED<\/p>\r\n

DEAR GRANDMA. THAN-K YUO FOR THE BLANKETS. LOVE JED<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Six more brief letters (some with art) from Jed and Jay to George and Helen. \u201cThis is a good machine. It\u2019s a plug-in good machine. It does lots of good things for you when you\u2019re real lazy.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,5,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-jay","category-from-jed","category-hearthlight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1086"}],"version-history":[{"count":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1150,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086\/revisions\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}