Short and sweet and some big softies

June 28, 1964

Dear Mom and Dad, Tom and Grandma,

Just me and the dog are awake and the Sunday paper isn't here yet, so I guess I'll drop you a short note.

First of all will you send me right away, air mail, directions on how you can apples with aspirin.  Send every detail.  I'm afraid I have forgotten everything (which was very little) I knew about canning.  Also how to can applesauce.  I can't use my pressure cooker, it's too small for quart jars.  But Gary did buy me a "hot water bath canner".

We've had some very pleasant and welcome relief from the heat wave.  Friday it was only 84 degrees and yesterday was about the same.

This silly dog is playing with an old shoe.  Shaking it, laying it down, and growling at it.  I never thought I would care much for a dog, but I'm kind of attached to this little mutt.  Gary says he is going to build a dog house for him so he can sleep outside at night.  But I don't know.  We had to take the dog along to the drive-in movie the other night because Gary said he was too little to be left home alone.

The pup gets mad when I leave him alone to go to the store.  When we get home he looks at me with those big sorrowful eyes and then crawls away someplace to pout, usually under our bed.

Well, I better wake the kids up and get them fed.  I'm going to try and get start early enough this morning so there won't be that rush, rush, rush at the last minute.

Love, Gary, Greta, Dale and Mary

The other night Mary was playing in their room and I called her to come eat supper.  She sits in there and says, "I can't hear you."

Thank you for the birthday card, Grandma.

Canning with aspirin?  That is a totally new one on me.  And must the apples have been rotting before her very eyes that Mom needed directions sent air mail?  Goodness!

Who wouldn't have fallen in love with Spot?  Most of us remember Grandma saying when Spot stayed at their house that he knew his spot was on the rug behind the stuffed rocking chair, not in it.  When Grandma would come down in the mornings, Spot would greet her happily from the rug, but the chair still in motion gave him away that he had just jumped down in time.

The latest on Muggsy -- I taught her to "shake" and of course, she gets rewarded with a treat when she does it on my command.  Well, she is a big ol' chow hound and thinks she needs to eat a lot.  So, a couple of times now, when she must have been feeling deprived, she sat down and raised her paw unbidden, suggesting that she should have a treat.  As you might imagine, I easily gave in.