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Thurs. August 17 1956
Dear Mother,
Believe it or not, this is the first opportunity that I have had to write you since I got through finals. Moving out of the dorm was impossible, so it took a while. Sun., Jim and I picked up Jean and Jane and went out to the dorm where we completely filled the back of the pick-up with my junk and a small hat box and clothes sack belonging to Joan Bennett. I don't know if we looked typical or atypical, leaving Lagunita, with Jim and I in the cab with two bowls of fish and Joan's fur coat, with Jean, Jane, and Joan perched in back on top of the load. There was a man standing by the back door watching Jim and the girls carrying my stuff out. He was amused, but when Jim came out with the bricks for my bookcase, the guy started to laugh and said "Hey buddy, it's against the law to tear down the building and take that with you too." We stopped in South Pally for breakfast and a case of beer, and I phoned you from there. I talked to Kevin and he got the number Da 54264. I hope he gave it to you. I expected you to call but you didn't.
Saturday, I did all my packing after my last final in the morning and before I went to work at 5:30. We worked until 3:30 that night, or morning. After work I stopped by the apartment and picked up the bottle of champagne I had the girls get for me and then I went over and woke Jim up (4:15) and we had a gala graduation party in his mother's living-room until 6:00. I started getting up at 8:00 and finally got to 10:00 mass, so we didn't get to the dorm to start loading until about 11:00, but we made it out by the 12:00 deadline, much to the housekeeper's and the director's surprise, as usual.
The apartment is really neat. It is the top floor of an old house, very roomy and not the least bit cramped, also furnished. It even has a very nice upright piano left by some former tenants. Two bedrooms a living-room and a kitchen. Downstairs we have a garage and a storage shed. There is some kind of imitation wood composition on the walls that soundproofs the place terrifically. You can hardly hear the piano outside of the living-room and in the summer that Jean and Jane have been living here they have only hearf the baby downstairs once and that was when the window was open. There is a grocery store across the street on one side, the clinic on the other and St. Thomas Catholic Church one short block away. Anyway, I'm moved in, but getting settled, that is taking my stuff out of the boxes, may take weeks.
In the cannery, I am already a professional success as a cherry counter. I made my original splash as a cherry counter after a brief career in pear trimming, when we were using the larger cans. My natural talent for counting up to four really impressed the forelady, so for a week in big cans, I was at the head of the line putting four cherries in each can. Now we are in small cans and I only have to put two in each, so every once in a while she puts me in pear canning to speed things up since pears tend to drag because the fruit isn't too good. As you can see, this sort of thing takes a razor sharp mind and the ability to make quick decisions (before all the cans go by) and it is for this reason that I have decided that the cannery
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does not hold my true vocation in life.
MON. Continuing to grope, which I kind of enjoy, I applied at Kodak on Thursday and today I took the aptitude test, expecting to get a machine job like Jane and Jean have. My paint must have been a little scratched, because I think the personnel man saw in me more than just a mere button pusher. He swished me in for an interview with the head of the processing dept. who is looking for a new secretary, of course with the understanding that I am one of many applicants being interviewed for that particular job. I should know by the end of this week, and he wants me to take a typing test tomorrow, for the records. It was a pretty good interview and I hope I get that job. Besides figuring out the time sheets, there isn't much secretarial work involved, an occasional memo and getting him to meetings on time, relaying messages to and from the people in the dept., etc. Whatever I get, it isn't the cannery and it's about nine miles closer. Also, working until 3:00 AM and later is for the birds. I think that I'd rather work for a man than a woman anyway-- not so much fur and clawing.
Do you remember Kenny Mills, the boy with the cast on his arm who was going to come and see me the weekend that I was down there, who I introduced you to over by the South end of the grandstand at Belmont the night you came with Suzie. He went into the hospital for the fourth and last operation on his arm and as soon as they administered the anesthetic, his heart stopped. They got it started for a few seconds by massaging it, but then it stopped for good. It was an awful shock. He was only 24, wild but good, and never made an enemy in his life. We went to the funeral on Friday, but I still can't believe that he's really dead.
I hope that you aren't too disappointed that I didn't plunge right out of colleg and into a career or grad school. I got what I could and what I wanted out of Stanford and being up here. I kind of have a head start on things and I see no reason to make careful schedules and plans for the rest of my life as long as the things I'm doing are of some possible future use. From here on out, I have no particular plans or deadlines, just a mental list of things I intend to look into and things that I am curious about. I'll check them off as the opportunities present themselves or as I am able to make the opportunities. There are lots of things that I could do that would be "wise" or "good ideas" but I can't do them all and I can't like them all. A lot of my interests are not along tried and true lines anyway, so social wisdom and someone' elses experience isn't much help. Aside from the definite reasons I have for staying up here, you know as well as I do that coming home to live and finding something to do in LA would be a step backwards and that my divergent interests and habits would only cause friction. I don't feel just because you do things differently from the way that I do them that I should change. I think that you know what I mean, and it only starts with two-wheeled vehicles. I do appreciate my college education and the money and effort that you put out in giving it to me. I know its value and that its real assets to me in particular cannot be measured in grades or units. Believe it or not, I even realize that a lot of love as well as money and effort went into providing it.
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Kevin mentioned that he would be up here the 19th or 20th. Are you coming up with him? If you do, you could stay here. That is the date that Jane and Jean may be moving out and that Paula may be coming back to move in. Everybody is indefinite about everything right now, except me. I just know that I'll be here. Don't worry about that though. This place has been grand central station for anyone who needs a place to stay in Pally, all summer. We have three beds and a couch and I have a sleeping bag. One of the beds is mine to use, rent, or give away, so plan on staying here. By the time the date gets close I'll have a better idea of what's coming off anyway. Right now all I know is that on the 20th I have as good a chance to have the place all to myself as I do to be one of 4. Repeat: we have lots of room.
Tell Daddy that I am in the process of writing him a letter also. As soon as I get a little more settled I will write more frequently. Life is complicated by capital investments & the process of getting organized.
Let me know what your own plans are & when you plan on coming up next.
Love, Marcia
