old letters II

Continuing on with old letters my father dug up from storage. These were written a couple of weeks before my 6th birthday. (Click here to start at the beginning.)

Wednesday May 20, 1981

BOO!!!

Hi! Jeff:
How is everything goin in Bartlesville? Bet you are having fun. We watched "Lobo" on TV last night. It was funny.

Your Mother was supposed to take her final tests at school last night. Hope she made a lot of "A"s like you do.

Did you get the car I sent you? I saw it in the store last Sunday and thought "I'll bet Jeff would like that".

Are you getting big and fat eating a lot of that good Grandmother's cooking? Tell everybody hello for me.

I love you,
Pa-Pa

old letters I

My father sent me a box of old photos and letters that have been in storage for about 2 decades. I'm transcribing some of the letters for record keeping. For the hell of it, I'll post 'em too, because they make me smile.

Friday May 15, 1981 [13 days before my 6th birthday]

Dear Jeff-

Got your letter today and sure glad to hear from you. So now you are visitin in Bartlesville [Okla.] with Grand Mother and Grand Father Cranor. Bet you are having a good time and getting a lot of good things to eat!

You may get fat!

Then you will be my fat little dipstick. B-Mom and I are going over to Shot Gun Sams and eat pizza tonight. Then we'll come home and watch Dukes of Hazard. Be nice to all the boys and girls in Bartlesville and give Grandmother and Grandfather a big hug and kiss. Tell them hello for me.

I love you,
Pa-Pa

where is kill bill????

Words cannot describe my disappointment in yesterday's Oscar nominations. Not a single nomination for Kill Bill Vol. 2. In the post-LotR lull of 2004, KBv2 stood out above most of the plainjane award-bait epics. But Uma and Carradine and Quentin were all left out -- not even a wink and a nod to the freaking make-up artist.

Forget Condi Rice, folks, we need to get to the bottom of the conspiracy against one of 2004's best movies (i can't possibly put it above Napoleon Dynamite).

PS: RAY???? Are you kidding me???

i have finally reconciled personalities

Happier Man and The Structuralist are finally one! The separation of identities was about as flimsy as Superman adding a tie and glasses to (somehow) fool everybody into thinking Clark Kent was a TOTALLY different being. Anyway, my problem was mostly just laziness.

Well..

I guess the excitement of this moment wore off a little more quickly than I thought it would...

SSsoooooo... What's... up.... with you?

i heard there are noxious gases in uranus

It's just what I've heard... That's all I'm sayin'.

why i give change to the homeless

Last week in NYC, I gave a dollar to a homeless man. He smiled and said, "Hey man, let me tell you something. I bless the fuck out of you. Happy New Year!"

Then I laughed. Then he laughed louder, and I felt it was a dollar well spent.

favorite thing overheard in texas

While driving to the in-laws' place in Houston over the holidays, I heard a caller to some AM talk show (read to yourself in an east texas accent):

I don't see why we have to send so much money over to them countries for their tsunami or whatever. It's not like those countries came to help us out when we had all them hurricanes in Florida.

Well, the next time zero people die in Palm Beach Gardens during a hurricane, I'll make a phone call to Sri Lanka and see if they can help rebuild a couple of winter beach homes. Hopefully there are still some people alive that not only have a couple of bucks to spare ("just skip one of your twice-weekly rice dinners"), not to mention a telephone.