Four-page letter, handwritten on heavy unlined paper.<\/p>\r\n
Includes yet another attempt at a weak pun between a mispronounced Japanese word and an English word, sigh.<\/p>\r\n
\r\nMay 26, 1974<\/p>\r\n
Dear Parents\u2014\u2014<\/p>\r\n
Our delight was boundless when we learned that you could get away for a week to come & visit us Change of pen color<\/span> \u2014\u2014 we eagerly await your arrival... (the other pen was giving up) Another change of pen color<\/span> (surely one of these must write ... o.k.).<\/p>\r\n
By a miraculous \u201ccoincidence\u201d, we had planned to be in S.F. on the morning of the 8th<\/u><\/sup>: our church service is held the second Sunday of each month, and that\u2019s the day! So anyway, the service begins at 10:00, the ceremony lasts about a half-hour and would be interesting to you \u2014\u2014 it involves putting fruit, vegetables, cupcakes, rice, salt, & sake (as in \u201cit might be rice wine to you, but it\u2019s socki to me\u201d... yikes) on the altar as an expression of thankfulness to God for abundance of material blessings, and chanting a 3000-year-old Shinto \u201cPrayer of Heaven\u201d (Amatsu Norito) asking God to purify the world and our spirits.<\/p>\r\n
Note written sideways in margin:<\/span> Thank you very very much for your letters of your childhood, Pop\u2014\u2014We all loved them, especially Jed & Joaquin...<\/p>\r\n
Anyway, after this opening ceremony, there is a five-minute break, and then an hour-and-a-half sermon in alternating Japanese & English paragraphs. This would probably be less than fascinating to you (i.e. likely quite boring), so you could go into the children\u2019s playroom & play with your lovely grandchildren, or out into the terraced garden,
xxx<\/strike> or out walking around the (posh) neighborhood, or ? until the service is over, then we could do whatever in S.F., or immediately head back to Sta. Rosa, etc.<\/p>\r\nWell, as far as motels go, here\u2019s what I\u2019ve come up with:<\/p>\r\n
\r\n*1. Chalet Motel: 7 miles away, \u201cfamily apts & kitchens; tv; quiet, restful country living\u201d \u2014\u2014 $47.50\/wk.<\/p>\r\n
2. Highland Dell Resort Hotel: in Monte Rio (23 miles away); $12 - $22\/day, seventh day is free; probably rustic<\/p>\r\n
3. Inn Sebastopol: 5(?) miles away; \"titillating decor, waterbed suites {{also air conditioning}}, colorcable tv,
x<\/strike> free coffee & juice; $16\/day, 7th<\/u><\/sup> day free; possibility of some $12 suites ...<\/p>\r\n*4. Astro Motel: \u201ca SUPERIOR motel\u201d \u2014\u2014 room coffee, color tv, air conditioning, pool, sauna, beside Julliard Park & Luther Burbank Gardens; $14\/day, $70\/wk.; 5 miles away. {{6th<\/u><\/sup> & 7th<\/sup> days free}}<\/p>\r\n
* = in Santa Rosa<\/p>\r\n
*5. Rustic Motor Inn: 5 miles away; air cond., tv, 2 pools: dble bed = $16\/day; twin beds = $18\/day; queen bed = $20; large twin beds = $22\/day. \u201cdeluxe garden style\u201d, a \u201cBest Western\u201d motel.<\/p>\r\n
*6. Downtown Motel: 5 miles away; separate cottages, w\/ kitchenette, cable tv, \u201cfor a park-like setting downtown; $55\/wk.<\/p>\r\n
*7. Hillside Inn Best Western Motel: 8 miles away, pool, tv, sauna baths; $18\/day for queen bed.<\/p>\r\n
\r\nSo. There\u2019s quite a range, and I didn\u2019t know what would strike your fancy, so I didn\u2019t make any reservations: when you decide, give us a ring & I\u2019ll call them. (You could save phone cost by following code: if you want #1, phone collect for Mr. A<\/u>llistair; if #2, for Mr. B<\/u>urgess; if #3, for Mr. C<\/u>ooke; etc.: then from the first letter I\u2019ll know which one to call...!) You want it six nights, right? June 9-14? And should we make return train reservations, or have you? You\u2019ll return the 15th<\/u><\/sup> & arrive the 16th<\/u><\/sup>? Do you go back to teach o
x<\/strike>n 17th<\/u><\/sup>? or 18th<\/u><\/sup>? Enough mundane details, let\u2019s look at the Big Picture!<\/p>\r\nNote written sideways in margin:<\/span>Yes, we\u2019ll meet you at 8:15, 6\/9 in San Fran!<\/p>\r\n
School\u2019s out by then, and we have no commitments except a dental app\u2019t
x<\/strike>m\u2019t on Tuesday, so we can be very flexible in arranging excursions, beach or mountain expeditions, cultural evenings of refined entertainment, hedonic revels in mineral & mud baths at local hot-springs health spas, riverside luaus, long lazy afternoons sipping margueritas in our hammocks while watching the sweating braceros toil in lush tropical gardens \u2014\u2014 oops, I got carried away \u2014\u2014 I\u2019m supposed to be teetotaling, our garden won\u2019t be lush for another five years, and I\u2019m one of the sweating toilers ...<\/p>\r\nWe\u2019re doing \u201cNature Farming\u201d in our garden \u2014\u2014 like in a forest, only mulch is put down on surface, no compost is dug into the soil. Also, we channel Johrei Light to the Spirit of the soil, and much glass, metal, wire, concrete, stones, nails, all kinds of debris, rises to the surface like toxins coming out of a boil on a person\u2019s skin. It is very amazing to see.<\/p>\r\n
Also, we have a paid staff now: \u201cSam\u201d (actually Stamatis) does gardening and babysitting, so Marcy & I can escape sometimes.<\/p>\r\n
Love, P, M, J & J<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
Some Google Docs OCR errors from this letter:<\/p>\r\n
\r\n
- margueritas: mortueritas<\/li>\r\n
- we channel: como porno<\/li>\r\n
- escape sometimes: escape some limes<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n
Notes<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n
- \u201c\u2018coincidence\u2019\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- I assume the quotation marks were intended to indicate that Peter didn\u2019t really believe in coincidence, and that instead this was part of the cosmic plan.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201csake\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- In Japanese, this word is pronounced more like \u201csah-keh,\u201d not \u201csocki.\u201d I know that the word is widely mispronounced by non-Japanese speakers, but Peter really should have known better by this point.<\/dd>\r\n
- Amatsu Norito<\/dt>\r\n
- The first recording on a Matheson Trust page<\/a> gives a vague sense of what this prayer was like, though our version had slightly more of a melody, a little bit more like a song and less like a chant than the version on that page.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201cletters of your childhood, Pop\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- I\u2019m especially disappointed that these didn\u2019t survive, given how little we know about George\u2019s childhood. :(<\/dd>\r\n
- motels<\/dt>\r\n
- Someone, probably Helen, crossed out motels 2 and 6, and put arrows pointing to 1, 4, and 6, and crossed out the arrow pointing to 1, and circled various attributes, and added brief notes like \u201cNo phone sauna or pool.\u201d<\/dd>\r\n
- The envelope for this letter is covered with additional notes and comments and phone numbers for the various motels, in what I think is Helen\u2019s handwriting.<\/dd>\r\n
- collect-call code<\/dt>\r\n
- Peter and Marcy used a variant of this code when one of them needed to call ahead to tell the other what time they would arrive home; in that variant, they used names that rhymed with numbers. \u201cCollect call for Mr. Grate\u201d to indicate 8:00, or \u201cCollect call for Mr. Blix\u201d to indicate 6:00, etc.<\/dd>\r\n
- It always seemed like a kind of clever code to me (though also seemed like cheating\/going around the rules). I don\u2019t know whether they made it up, or whether it was a widespread thing at the time.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201csupposed to be teetotaling\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- I don\u2019t have a clear sense of when or why Peter went on and off various drugs, including alcohol.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201cpaid staff now\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- I have no memory of Sam\/Stamatis.<\/dd>\r\n<\/dl>\r\n\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peter makes plans for a visit from George and Helen. \u201cOur delight was boundless when we learned that you could get away for a week to come & visit us.\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":[4,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1420","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-peter","category-hearthlight"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420","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=1420"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1487,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1420\/revisions\/1487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1420"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1420"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1420"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}