Handwritten on lined three-hole-punch paper by Peter and Marcy. (First section in Peter\u2019s handwriting; then switches as noted by my notes in the text.)<\/p>\r\n
Helen (I think) wrote \u201cOct. 24, \u201972\u201d at the top of the first page, and that matches internal evidence within the letter, so I\u2019m assuming it\u2019s accurate.<\/p>\r\n
Content warning for description of painful dental issues.<\/p>\r\n
\r\nThis is dictated by Marcy:<\/p>\r\n
Dear Grandma & Grandpa,<\/p>\r\n
Today is the day of:<\/p>\r\n
(1) my first bath in our real live bathtub, which is happening right now as I lie here
x<\/strike> beneath the suds contemplating<\/p>\r\n(2) Peter\u2019s new profile\u2026 I can\u2019t decide whether he looks more like Paul Hartman or Catfish Hunter, who (the latter) is our New Hero.<\/p>\r\n
Picture us, Sunday afternoon,
x<\/strike> eyes fixed on the screen of our\u2014\u2014would-you-believe?\u2014\u2014Color TV, eating tortillas & beans, blissfully watching the World Series, cheering for Catfish and his hairy teammates, trying to be patient with Jed, who asked incessantly, \u201cIs it over now?\u201d and \u201cWill you tell me when one team wins?\u201d to the accompaniment of Joaquin\u2019s \u201cI\u2019m tired<\/u> of watching tewevizin.\u201d This domestic scene is only marred by Peter\u2019s having a toothache instead of a beer; he obligingly wore an undershirt for the occasion (even though it was tie-dyed)<\/p>\r\nThe handwriting switches to Marcy\u2019s at this point.<\/span><\/p>\r\n
The toothache was resolved by an emergency extraction yesterday (
xxx<\/strike> Sunday after the Game)\u2014the dentist didn\u2019t believe the X-ray & had to take a 2nd one\u2014it was so badly abcessed\u2014evidently our dentist inxxx<\/strike> Berkeley didn\u2019t belive it either, as Peter had told him of a toothache there & he\u2019d insisted it was okay & filled the tooth next to it. The dentistxxx<\/strike> here also referred Peter to a periodontist for pyorrhea, also untreated by the Berkeley dentist. Pretty scary, the things dentists can get away with\u2026<\/p>\r\nThe Profile is resolved (today) by beardlessness, but still long hair & mustache. The kids were wide-eyed but not quite able to figure out exactly what had happened. Looks good\u2014we\u2019ll send you a picture, as soon as the skin where the beard was gets a little tanner. He says he cut it off \u2019cos he wanted to see what he looked like after 3 years. (He looks about the same as he did, only 7 years and 8 months younger.) (approximately)<\/p>\r\n
this is the end of dictation by Marcy. The rest is mostly joint effort:<\/p>\r\n
That\u2019s confusing, because the previous two paragraphs were in Marcy\u2019s handwriting, as are the next several.<\/span><\/p>\r\n
Peter is digging his bath\u2014first bubble bath he ever remembers, first bath at all in a long time. We use Shaklee\u2019s \u201cDelight\u201d for dishes & bubble baths\u2014makes bubbles forever.<\/p>\r\n
Note in margin:<\/span> Pumice stone of Persian lava is highly recommended for caloused feet.<\/p>\r\n
The photos of the house were supposed to be in color, but Peter didn\u2019t know the film was black-&-white.<\/p>\r\n
Alas, we did not get to listen to your tape, as the recorder we have was not<\/u> put to work by new batteries, & was the wrong size anyway.<\/p>\r\n
But your letter was marvelous. We loved the Avocado\u2014went right out & bought one that very day. Also, from the library \u201cThe Avocado Pit
xxx<\/strike> Growers\u2019 Indoor Handbook\u201d\u2014along with tomes & volumes on organic gardening and composting, now that we have the space. Rototilling next week for the winter garden, I hope.<\/p>\r\nThe photos were fun, & the article on Mendocino was interesting, tho we didn\u2019t see too much of the touristy stuff when we were there. We did spend a lot of time at the laundromat beneath the Water Tower that was in one of the pictures, and I think one of the art teachers pictured may have been someone we knew.<\/p>\r\n
But the best thing, Grandpa, was the news of your new teaching environment. I can see you stepping into a phone booth on your way from a regular class, ol\u2019 George, mild mannered magister, and out steps a blue-denimed, psychedelic-
xxx<\/strike> shirted, long-haired SUPERTEACH!!! barefoot, of course, faded jeans, bright orange chalk, a stack of old copies of \u201cRolling Stone\u201d under one arm and a peace sign at his fingertips. Seriously, what I mean to say is that I expect the new methods<\/u> of communicating that go along with the new places<\/u> for learning are much more subtle and very much more challenging. Making a movie is ever so much more work than grading a piece of memory work\u2014more fun, too, but most older teachers don\u2019t seem to realize that. (Hope we can get to see it too \/ The movie, I mean)<\/p>\r\nPeter\u2019s contribution is that if you vote for McGovern you\u2019ll be able to tell your kids when they ask\u2014but if you vote for Nixon, you\u2019ll have to say \u201c\u2014Ahem. I don\u2019t think I ought to tell who I voted for.\u201d<\/p>\r\n
We really appreciate your letters, & hope to do better about replying. It was nice to find that one here when we arrived, especially.
x<\/strike> A postcard from Paul & Linda, too.<\/p>\r\nPeter will have to be working over the Christmas holidays\u2014why don\u2019t you come down here? We have lots of space for all kinds of Christmas stuff\u2014including a live indoor Christmas tree, we hope. Can\u2019t serve up any snow, though. Or maybe that\u2019s no great loss.<\/p>\r\n
Switching back to Peter\u2019s handwriting.<\/span><\/p>\r\n
I\u2019m back from bath-Nirvana\u2014\u2014want to tell you about some things happening job-wise:<\/p>\r\n
1) I\u2019ve been getting acquainted with the 100-odd kids who come around to Rising Sun, and have taken part in 3 group sessions. Also, I\u2019ve been assigned my first 1-1 client.<\/p>\r\n
2) I\u2019ve been informally teaching many of the kids how to play games such as 5-in-a-row, cala, tactix, go, chess, and dominoes (almost everyone already knew the last, and almost no one the others\u2026)<\/p>\r\n
3) I\u2019ve been meeting the Judge, newspaper owner-editor, principals, teachers, etc., and will be meeting more \u201cVIPs\u201d\u2026<\/p>\r\n
4) for the whole of this week (Tues.-Fri.) we (the staff) are closing the house and conducting a staff retreat, wherein we\u2019ll get our heads together (individually & collectively), exploring each others\u2019 strengths and weaknesses, using Gestalt techniques, psychodrama techniques, the \u201cSynanon-type\u201d Game (\u201cattack therapy\u201d), and other methods of getting into the Now, and becoming more an integrated team.<\/p>\r\n
5. We\u2019ll also be planning the directions the program will take, particularly regarding activities: crafts, classes (Marcy will be teaching a cooking class, also perhaps a drug-education class to primary-school kids), projects (such as perhaps organizing and running a coffeehouse-bookstore-art gallery-(with chess & Go<\/u> boards), and maybe making a movie of this endeavor), trips (to the mountains, to Marine World\/Africa USA, etc.)<\/p>\r\n
anyway, everything\u2019s working out\u2026 more later\u2014\u2014love, Peter, Marcy, Jed, Joaquin<\/p>\r\n
\r\n\r\nMy Lord, Thou art in every breath I take,<\/p>\r\n
And every bite and sup taste firm of Thee.<\/p>\r\n
With buoyant mercy Thou enfoldest me,<\/p>\r\n
And holdest up my foot each step I make.<\/p>\r\n
Thy touch is all around me when I wake,<\/p>\r\n
Thy sound I hear, and by Thy light I see<\/p>\r\n
The world is fresh with Thy divinity<\/p>\r\n
And all Thy creatures flourish for Thy sake.<\/p>\r\n
For I have looked upon a little child<\/p>\r\n
And seen Forgiveness, and have seen the day<\/p>\r\n
With eastern fire cleanse the foul night away;<\/p>\r\n
So cleanest Thou this House I have defiled.<\/p>\r\n
And if I should be merciful, I know<\/p>\r\n
It is Thy mercy, Lord, in overflow.<\/p>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
Kenneth Boulding<\/p>\r\n
(from \u201cNaylor Sonnets\u201d\u2014\u2014from Fellowship Publications, Nyack, N.Y.\u2014\u2014referring to James Naylor, an early Quaker saint)<\/p>\r\n
(quoted by Maurice Friedman in \u201cTouchstones of Reality\u201d\u2014\u2014subtitled \u201cExistential Trust and the Community of Peace\u201d: E.P. Dutton, N.Y., N.Y., 1972)<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
Notes<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n
- Catfish Hunter<\/dt>\r\n
- Pitcher for the Oakland A\u2019s<\/a>.<\/dd>\r\n
- Color TV<\/dt>\r\n
- I\u2019m surprised at this. We didn\u2019t have a TV for much of my childhood, and my memory was that during the brief time when we did have one, Jay and I were only allowed to watch PBS shows.<\/dd>\r\n
- World Series<\/dt>\r\n
- I\u2019m also surprised that we watched the 1972 World Series<\/a>. Until now, the only evidence I\u2019ve seen in these letters that any of us had any interest in baseball was the baseball uniform that I loved to wear. Jay got very into baseball later, but I don\u2019t recall Peter or Marcy ever expressing any interest in it when we were small.<\/dd>\r\n
- hairy teammates<\/dt>\r\n
- Turns out the 1972 Oakland A\u2019s were known as the Mustache Gang<\/a>, \u201ca team that broke the traditionally conservative baseball views by sporting mustaches. Prior to the 1970s there had only been two baseball players who had facial hair during the regular season: Stanley \u2018Frenchy\u2019 Bordagaray[\u2026], who was then ordered to shave by his manager, and Wally Schang[\u2026]. This changed when the A\u2019s outfielder, Reggie Jackson, showed up to spring training with a fully grown mustache which would later be thought of as the catalyst that sparked the move away from the conservative baseball era. This move [led] to the World Series final [being] dubbed \u2018Hairs vs. Squares\u2019, as the Oakland A\u2019s Mustache Gang faced off with the conservatively clean-shaven Cincinnati Reds.\u201d I wonder if that\u2019s what sparked Peter and Marcy\u2019s interest in baseball.<\/dd>\r\n
- pyorrhea<\/dt>\r\n
- Another word for periodontitis.<\/dd>\r\n
- wrong size anyway<\/dt>\r\n
- Huh. Were there different sizes of cassette tapes in 1972? \u2026Possibly this was a reel-to-reel tape recorder, but I\u2019d be a little surprised if George and Helen mailed a reel of tape. (Various family members did mail cassettes to each other later.)<\/dd>\r\n
- avocado<\/dt>\r\n
- Surely this doesn\u2019t mean that we hadn\u2019t had avocado before this?<\/dd>\r\n
- new teaching environment<\/dt>\r\n
- I\u2019m not sure what that refers to.<\/dd>\r\n
- tell your kids<\/dt>\r\n
- Took me a couple reads of that line to realize that they meant the kids George was teaching.<\/dd>\r\n
- cala<\/dt>\r\n
- Probably another name for mancala.<\/dd>\r\n
- tactix<\/dt>\r\n
- A game<\/a> that\u2019s kind of like a 2-dimensional version of Nim. I had never heard of it before this letter.<\/dd>\r\n
- Synanon Game\/attack therapy<\/dt>\r\n
- A form of supposed therapy in which members of a group said nasty things to each other. For a bit more about Synanon, see Rationalwiki<\/a>. For a lot more about Synanon, see LA Magazine<\/a>, though the first several paragraphs of that article oddly have nothing to do with Synanon at all.<\/dd>\r\n
- coffeehouse-bookstore-art gallery-(with chess & Go boards)<\/dt>\r\n
- I don\u2019t recall hearing Peter talk about this idea until I was in late high school or early college, when he started semi-seriously planning to move to Seattle and start such a place. (By that time, he also wanted to do computer and math tutoring in the back room, iIrc.)<\/dd>\r\n
- James Naylor<\/dt>\r\n
- \u201cJames Nayler (or Naylor; 1618\u20131660) was an English Quaker leader<\/a>\u2026\u201d<\/dd>\r\n<\/dl>\r\n\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peter and Marcy take baths; we watch the World Series on TV; Peter has to have an emergency tooth extraction; updates on Peter\u2019s job; discussions of teaching; and more. \u201cPicture us, Sunday afternoon, eyes fixed on the screen of our\u2014\u2014would-you-believe?\u2014\u2014Color TV, eating tortillas & beans, blissfully watching the World Series, cheering for Catfish and his hairy teammates, trying to be patient with Jed, who asked incessantly, \u2018Is it over now?\u2019 and \u2018Will you tell me when one team wins?\u2019\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":[3,4,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-marcy","category-from-peter","category-awareness-house"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859","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=859"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/859\/revisions\/876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}