Letter 15

Thursday, December 03, 2015      3:22 P.M.

Provo  Utah

My Dear Noah;

I bet you’re looking forward to Christmas vacation in a few weeks. What are you and your family going to be doing? Traveling or staying at home? I’m hoping to be in my new apartment by Christmas.

I’m sending you a photo of the house I grew up in, from 1954 to 1971. It is still standing at 900 19^thAvenue S.E. in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

It seemed a grand old house to me when I was growing up in it, but when I came back to visit in later life it felt awful cramped and awkward.  My mom and dad, my brother Billy and my 2 sisters Sue Ellen and Linda lived there with me. When Billy moved out I finally got my own bedroom – at the age of 12. Before that I shared a bedroom with my sisters!

I think your dad might remember something of this house. I often took him over there in the summer to collect night crawlers for fishing. First you had to let the hose run for about 20 minutes, and then the big fat worms would come wriggling up from the soil to be grabbed and put in an old coffee can. We did most of our fishing at Lake Johanna – catching perch and sunfish. They were too small to keep so we threw ‘em back, although your father and the other kids wanted to keep ‘em as pets.

My mom kept the house sparkling clean, which was a real challenge since my dad was a dedicated slob. He liked to eat fried pork rinds in his easy chair while watching cowboy shows on TV. The greasy crumbs would creep down his double chin to his protruding stomach and stay there until he got up, and then they would tumble onto the carpet. Mom would never let them stay there for more than a minute, but would swoop on them like a hawk on a chicken with the vacuum.  She did not have any work outside the house – she spent all day washing, ironing, vacuuming, cooking, scrubbing floors, and cleaning windows. Not to mention taking care of ragamuffins such as myself. She also managed to plant a small garden each year and kept a big red rosebush in the backyard that was the envy of the neighborhood.

 I remember in the backyard there was a huge old weeping willow, where the wasps liked to congregate in the drooping branches in the late fall and sting any unwary intruders. The tree blew down during a wind storm when I was a teenager, so mom bought a flowering crab tree to replace it. I was the one who actually planted it. The last time I was in Minneapolis (2008) that tree was still there, now about 15 feet  high.

My mother moved out of the house in 1999, after dad died in the nursing home. It was just too big for her to take care of all by herself.

I still remember the landline telephone number we had for that house: 612-331-7441. Have your dad explain what a landline is if you don’t know.

Well, my little whirlybird, take care and remember that if you can’t be good at least be Republican –

Yer pal,

Tt