I\u2019m not at all sure of the date on this two-page handwritten letter\u2014clearly a Monday at some point after July 4, but dunno if it\u2019s July 5 or July 12. There\u2019s another letter from Peter dated July 16, and I think this is unlikely to be after that. I\u2019m working from a photo of this letter at the moment instead of the original; when I get home in a couple weeks, I\u2019ll check whether there\u2019s a postmark date or something, and will adjust the date of this post if so. For now, I\u2019ll assume July 5, though I\u2019m dubious about that.<\/p>\r\n
\r\nDear Jed & Joaquin--<\/p>\r\n
How are you boys doing? I was very glad to be able to talk with you on the 4th<\/u><\/sup> of July, and glad to hear you were (mostly) having a good time. I hope you got to see some kind of fireworks (I didn\u2019t see any, but heard many bangs here in San Fran) (I did GoShinTaiGoji Fri. & Sun. nights, and Marcy just now (4:30 a.m. Mon.) came back from L.A. Tsukinami-sai).<\/p>\r\n
So by the time you receive this, you will have been at Uncle Dave\u2019s & Aunt Karen\u2019s house for several days -- I am sure you will be enjoying life on the farm, there is always so much to do...<\/p>\r\n
Well I heard from your grandma how much you boys have helped her -- \u201cThat How Good!\u201d Also, I\u2019m glad to know you met Jason -- I bet he\u2019s really neat. Hope you enjoy working & playing with Elizabeth.<\/p>\r\n
Marcy & I are doing fine, except we miss you a whole lot... if we get too<\/u> lonely, maybe Marcy will drive up there & get you...<\/p>\r\n
Well, I\u2019ve been very busy building in the basement at Heath\u2019s house in Mill Valley: I finished painting at Schenk\u2019s house in Larkspur and Jordan & Michael are working at the Maywood House in San Rafael. Silver & I are tearing out beams, putting in new ones, building the walls & doors & closets of the bedroom, bathroom, & playroom, cutting windows through the walls -- it\u2019s all called \u201cframing\u201d...<\/p>\r\n
I hope you two are remembering to channel Johrei to each other for at least a little while every day... have any of your kith \u2019n kin received any Light from you? (kiss\u2019n cousins?)<\/p>\r\n
Well it\u2019s almost time (6:30 a.m.) for me to rouse myself & clean the altar room and prepare the on-nikku tray (you know, the water, rice & salt...), so I\u2019ll close for now. Please write me & let us know how you\u2019ve been, & some of the things you\u2019ve been doing. (Did you go out in the boat?)<\/p>\r\n
Say \u2018hello\u2019 to everyone, & give them our<\/p>\r\n
Love,<\/p>\r\n
Peter<\/p>\r\n
Written sideways in margin:<\/span> P.S. Grandma wanted to know your middle names: in case you don\u2019t know how to spell them, they are \u201cELYSDIR\u201d and \u201credacted by Jed<\/span>\u201d... spacey, huh?<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
Notes<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n
- 4th of July<\/dt>\r\n
- I forgot to mention in notes on the previous letter that this wasn\u2019t just any old 4th of July; this was 1976, the US Bicentennial. It was a big deal. But I don\u2019t remember anything about the celebration, or about the particular fireworks that we saw.<\/dd>\r\n
- goshintai goji<\/dt>\r\n
- I vaguely think that this was the name for taking care of the altar and other things at the church.<\/dd>\r\n
- tsukinami-sai<\/dt>\r\n
- In Shinto, apparently a particular kind of monthly ceremony; presumably our church had adapted this, as it did with various other aspects of Shinto.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201cThat How Good!\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- No idea what he meant by this. I would guess it\u2019s a reference to or quote from something, but dunno what.<\/dd>\r\n
- Jason<\/dt>\r\n
- Our then-new cousin, about 10 months old.<\/dd>\r\n
- Elizabeth<\/dt>\r\n
- Another cousin, about my age.<\/dd>\r\n
- building<\/dt>\r\n
- Peter later said on many occasions that he was a master carpenter, and I think that he must have learned and practiced carpentry before Jay and I came along. But it only just now occurred to me that I never saw him do<\/em> carpentry. I don\u2019t know why he suddenly went off to build stuff during our trip, nor why as far as I know he didn\u2019t continue after we came back. He didn\u2019t have shop tools at home, and he never taught us any carpentry, even though he taught us lots of more-intellectual stuff (like math). Puzzling.<\/dd>\r\n
- boat<\/dt>\r\n
- There was a rowboat at the beach house; I vaguely remember going out in it once or twice, but not sure whether that was this trip or a different one.<\/dd>\r\n<\/dl>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A note from Peter to Jed and Jay, while we were visiting George and Helen. \u201cMarcy & I are doing fine, except we miss you a whole lot… if we get too<\/u> lonely, maybe Marcy will drive up there & get you…\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":[4,16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-peter","category-cotati"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950","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=1950"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1964,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950\/revisions\/1964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}