Marcia Kirwan Standley Papers

Plenty of time for that, as long as the dryer holds out.

The hot water heater went out last week. We weren't too surprised, since we bought it used for $15.00 from a wrecker a little over a year ago. Fortunately, we were ahead on the washing, so for a few days, we kept the tea-kettle busy, until we could get out & pick a new one. We made a good deal at a Sears sale, a glass-lined one this time, since the water is so hard around here. Now we can forget about that for the next 10 yrs.

Thank you for the Vitamin C. We're taking it in hopes that we miss this year's round of colds & flu. That flu epidemic isn't supposed to have reached this area yet, but there are several serious cases around.

A couple of weeks ago, I bought

Sunset's book on mosaics, & have finally decided that's just the right medium for end tables & coffee tables. Jim can weld up the frames out of scrap iron for next to nothing. The want a crazy price for frames in the art stores. I've decided on a medium of glass over clear plastic with fiberglass resin for grout. It's very durable & reflects the light well. Also, glass can be collected. One could spend a fortune on the commercial pot shards they sell for mosaic. So now I'm looking for pastly-colored bottles and pieces of broken glass. There's lots of milk-bottles white, 7-up green & whiskey brown around, but the other colors are a little more difficult to find, We have a gorgeous blue eye-wash bottle, that I plan to swipe. Any piece of glass bigger than a thumbnail is good, but whole, square bottles are best, because they present more flat surfaces & can be cut to the desired size. A good supply

of several colors wil be necessary before I can get serious about any design. If I can find a place that makes stained glass windows, I've got it made. We're going to make a machine to take off the sharp edges with Daddy's grinder motor & shaft. Do you think you could switch from swiping rocks, to bottles & broken glass?

By the time you get this, that Christmas package should be in the mail. Profound apologies & Happy Easter.

Kevin brought an awfully nice girl down with him when he brought the car. Very different from the condescending, self-centered types he's introduced me to, in the past. Hope this represents a trend.

Mon. Well, for once I didn't fall asleep after dinner. We just finished

framed. Are you familiar with the popular prices of custom frames? I wasn't. I picked out two dandies, met right for the prints & neutral to any furnishing scheme that might evolve. The total price was somewhat out of keeping with my estimates, probably yours, too. The best thing, I think, would be for you to figure out how much you expected it to cost & we'll pay the difference, because the whole deal came to $46.00, ( $33 for the Van Gough & $13 for the Winslow Homer). For this, I should have the original. They're sure going to look funny in our rebuild-as you-go house for a while, anyway.

2-6-60 As per your request, I will now mail this. My caseload had a big week, - alcoholism became rampant, active TB discovered in the most improbable set of lungs, had to spend time

Jan 15, 1962

Dear Mother & Daddy,

For the last couple of Sat. mornings, Pooh has been asking if "this is the one when Grandma & Grandpa are coming." Her conception of time does not yet extend to "the end of January." We're not telling her that Grandpa has to shoot up a bunch of ducks first.

They really go for the hats & sweaters you sent them for Christmas. They went for the hats so much that I had to stash them in the top of our closet. I'm relieved to say that the sweaters are machine washable & do not fade. Lately they haven't been able to wear them much. It's been car coat weather all day with ice on the puddles at noon. Jim likes his new shirt & the

2 color goes well with his eyes. That also will have to wait until summer to be properly worn. The gloves are so lovely that I'm a little afraid to wear them. Thank you very much.

This week, Jim has been all involved with the Citroen. We got it running last weekend, & after a fast phone call to the insurance man, we all went for a ride. It help going & we got home in one piece. It's been sitting for such a long time - Jim was really surprised. Jim has been driving it to work this week, ironing out all the little kinks. The kids like it, & when the man at the gas station asked what it was, Pooh told him. If you get the chance before you come up, would you call the West Coast distribution for Citroen in Beverly Hills: Citroen Cars. Corp., phone OL 38330. First ask if he has a used

3 stub axle & hub assembly for the right side of a 1951 type 11 (eleven) SERIES B Citroen wide gauge 4 dr. sedan. If it's more than $15 or $20, ask them to quote you a price on a new one. If the price is right, buy it & we'll reimburse you. Don't buy a new one. Also ask the price of a new steering wheel & horn button assembly. Jim has an auto wrecker friend looking for used pieces which he sells to us very reasonably, so we don't want to pay a fortune for used parts, since we don't need them immediately. The address is 8423 Wilshire Blvd., B.H. Would you also call Challenger Motors 8275 Melrose Ave., L.A., phone OL 32087 to see if they have a used stub axle for a better price. There's no rush or urgent need for this stuff, so if you don't get the chance before you come,

March 4, 1962

Dear Mother and Daddy,

All of your packages have arrived and are very much appreciated. We are still trying to decide on color on the Jay-less, but maybe if they are open on Sat, we'll go up and look the stuff over in the raw. Last weekend went by like a shot, and we are a little behind schedule on the kitchen and the bathroom. The living-room sure looks a heck of a lot betterm though, in spite of the few little details that remain unfinished.

The kids are happily ancitipating your visit, and will have a lot to tell you since they started nursury school on the 1st. It seems to be working out very well, and as soon as they get to know everyone, I think that they may prefer it to coming home.

The Popular Science book arrived today and we are giving it a thorough scrutiny. The big furnityre items on our list are the desk-complex and a coffee table, but there are a few other little time consuming details in the road.

Over the Washington's Birthday holiday we went to visit Jim's sister at Chinese Camp. We really had a good time and the kids got a little sample of farm life. Jim's 13 yr. old nephew has a Future Farmers of America project with some chickens and Pooh and Toot got to lift the warm eggs out from under the hens. He has a fairly tame one that he caught for them numerous times and let them pet it. He let them herd them into his chicken yard and taught them to do it gently. There were a few aspects of the rooster's behavior that they did not fully understand, but we will fill in those details later. We went on a hike with Pooh and the 4 older cousins and inspected an ancient cemetery with stones dating back as far as the 1880's, with inscriptions

like "shot in cold blood" and "drowned in the Tuolome River". Pooh turned out to be a pretty good hiker, sowe have promised them some camping trips this summer. San Mateo County has a very well maintained County park back in the foothills, which would be a good place to start. I got a book on wild flower identification and one on trees, so we will all learn together. I have to get one on birds, too, but I'm in no hurry because I'm sure we will be pretty busy. We weren't going to take Toot, since she is always insisting on being carried, but she heard about it and that is that. We told Pooh that real HIKERS don't ever get carried and she took us at our word.

On that subject, could we borrow two our your sleeping bags? Jim and I have a couple, but we would rather not share them with the kids. We were going to buy a couple of small ones, but for as little use as they would get, we would rather borrow a couple from a sanitary source. If this experiment goes well, we make take them on a more rugged extended trip the next time we take a vacation.

TheCitroen is running like a bomb. I have almost mastered the gears, though every once in a while, I crunch them. Front wheel drive is really divine. You hardly notice the fumes, it's so much fun. Pooh likes it because the doors are easier for her to open herself and nobody else has one. What it really needs right now is upholstry in the front seats. They are fairly simple in two peices, so we are going to order the naugahyde from the Sears cataloge and hack them out ourselves.

We really enjoyed the samples of your winetasting excursion, and have been doing a little sampling around the stores ourselves. There are several good wineries around Santa Clara County, Almaden and Paul Masson are the biggest, but one of the small ones has a tasting room right up off of El Camino in Mt. View, so one of these days...

A couple of weeks ago we went to the Cow Palace for a hockey game. Jim's mother got us the tickets and baby sat because she thought we needed a night out. It was really great. We probably would have never done it ourselves, but she showed up with the tickets and we went. Even if you don't understand what is going on, the principle of getting the puck in the goal is a simple one and there is seldom a dull moment in the process. They had a couple of dandy fist fights and one guy casually brained another with his stick. We heard later that this one was considered a relatively gentle game. I have heard about how the Canadians knock each other around. Really a thrilling sport, you should try it.

Last Sunday, Pooh wore that pink dress you got her to church. The weather was finally nice enough. She really looked nice in a white straw hat and a white wicker purse.

Your phone call just came unexpectedly and I have made the motel reservations. The man wanted to know if you were going to be ther on Sun nite. Since I didn't know how many days one of those pig orgies lasts, I told him I didn't know so he said that it wasn't too important anyway. "A nice room with twin beds in the back" and in your name at the Shangri-La. So your reservation is hereby confirmed.

Have to hit the sack now. Tomorrow I promised too many people that I would come to see them, in my usual well organized way. Hopefully, someone will have moved or inherited a million which cuts down the time necessary to process the application.

Got a couple of new records, my favorite vice, "country music". I finally found a recording of "The Letter Edged in Black". Pooh has a new Walt Disney of "The Lady and the Tramp" and you can hear "We are Siamese if you please" until it's printed on your brain. See you Sat.

Love, Marcia