Lindheim letters

"The Big Blowout"

'Twas the night of April 3rd on the relatively quiet campus of Leland Stanford University when all of a sudden surprises started bursting out in the dining hall of Paloma House. And surprises there were -- surprises for every single diner that evening. In fact, the excitement and astonishment has just now begun to wear itself down. To begin at the beginnnig....

Yesterday afternoon I took the candle that had survived all sorts of shocks between here and Los Angeles, including being lost for a time in transit between the two cities, to a florist to have him decorate it appropriately for an auspicious event. He bedecked said stick of twisted white wax with yellow flowers and ribbons, and made it quite beautiful -- all for a slight fee, that is. The candle had a big bow of yellow ribbon at the botton, and then three very full carnations were arranged up the candle, the tallest of them reaching almost to the top of the candle.

My stealthy accomplice, who had driven me to the flower shop, and who had been bribed with ice cream while we were waiting for the piece of floral artistry to be completed, made all the arrangements for the safekeeping of the candle when we returned to the dorm. She made sure that it got down to the kitchen and was marked for the correct house. Then we all got ready for dinner and the big moment.

Suddenly, right before we were to go down for the festive meal, said partner in crime received an urgent phone call from the dining hall. She was informed that there was to be another candle passed in Paloma -- another girl was also announcing some very exciting news! She was notified of this so that I could be told to be sure not to blow out someone else's candle. The other girl was also informed, and we were told that her candle (also for an engagement) would be passed first, and mine would be second. This evening, then, was really to be a special one.

Meanwhile, the honored guest was about to arrive. My English professor, Mr. Rebholz, was expected any minute, and of course he knew nothing at all about these last-minute changes in plan. My roommate Carol, in her usual sense of playfulness, decided that it would be fun not to tell him of what was to happen, and thus to let him be a little surprised also. She greeted him at the door with a stern warning -- "Whatever you do, don't say anything at all until Elaine actually blows out her candle."

Dinner began. Not that any of us were really eating much of it, even though it was good. We all had our eyes focused on the doorway through which the hasher would pass with the lighted candle. That is, while we were not watching Mr. Rebholz, who was visibly more nervous than any of the rest of us. The dining room was crowded, and it took quite a while for all the tables to be served. But finally the lights were flicked off, and all the girls

gasped. The head teacher handed the first girl sitting at the head table a beautiful white candle with pink roses on it. Immediately the speculations began--"who is announcing their engagement tonight?" Only a few of us knew. (We had been told right before dinner, when we had been notified about the double ceremony.) The pink roses made their trip around the dining hall, coming to our table second. (This had all been carefully arranged. The first candle was to pass by me; the second was to pass by the other girl.) Carol got the candle first, handed it to me, and then I calmly passed it on to Mr. Rebholz, who was sitting next to me. He nearly dropped it in his excitement--his mouth fell open and I had to kick him under the table to keep him from saying anything. But the candle went on, and as soon as he sa the other girl blow it out he knew what had happened. The lights went on, everyone clapped and sang for the other girl, and dinner proceeded. Very few people knew that there was a bigger surprise yet to come.

The hashers let a few minutes elapse, during which time they started serving dessert. Then the lights went off again, to the tune of really astonished gasps. "Another engagement!" "Who can it be?" Everyone oh'd and ah'd over the beautiful candle and flowers--in fact the unusual candle itself caused many comments. Finally it found its way home, and I got my chance at the "blowout." Congratulations followed, and the traditional song, "Felicitations to you," which even Mr.Rebholz joined in on singing. (They say that they sing "Felicitations" instead of "Congratulations" to a girl, because "Congratulations" sounds like they are praising you for finally "bagging him." I don't believe a word of it.

Explanations to Mr.Rebholz and the other girls at the table followed immediately--both about the engagement and about the two candles. The n we passed candy and thus ended a rather exciting evening meal.

Actually, it was a lot of fun to have two engagements on the same night, especially since mine was the second. The girls were even more surprised when the second candle came into the room--they had already seen me pass one by, so of course no one expected what was about to happen.

Postscript: The following announcement appeared in the Stanford Daily this morning:

Engagement Olivo announces the engagement of Kathleen Dennison, Class of '64 to Christopher Masters, University of Wisconsin '62, and presently of Cornell University Graduate School of Engineering. Paloma House announces the engagement of Elaine Lavis, Class of '63, to Richard Lindheim, University of Redlands, Class of '61 and presently University of Southern California Graduate School.

Sunday, April 14, 1963

Dear Family, I am celebrating this Easter morning by writing letters before breakfast instead of studying. I have also celebrated by putting on a different pair of pants than those I usually wear, so that I can look appropriately dressed for the occassion. And you are sharing in my celebration because I am writing to you on the last piece of this kind of paper that I have.

First of all, thank you very much for the letter with all its enclosures. I answered the cards which you sent. I was very sorry to hear of the death of Leah Gould. It sounds as if you have been having a very busy Pesach week, between the pleasant and not so pleasant activities. I guess the travelers must be very excited about their departure on Monday. I hope they enjoy their trip--I don't see how they couldn't!

In answer to your question--yes, my classes this quarter are going to entail a lot of work. But there is nothing I can do about it, because I have to take all of them. I have to take Chaucer in order to complete my English major, and I have to take the Senior Colloquium in order to complete my General Studies requirements. The Colloquium turned out to be more work than expected but at least I have my report out of the way, so now it is only reading and the paper at the end. Then my other two courses--the history and the political science--are both elective, but I need the units. I think that as soon as I get my essay out of the way the work load will not be so [huge?]. I really felt funny in my political science section on Thursday. I think that that is the first time I've ever gone to a class so completely unprepared. But fortunately I didn't have to say anything, and next time I'll have done the readings and I can appear a little more awake. I didn't finish all the revisions on my essay by Friday and consequently I have been spending the weekend working on it. There was more to do than I had thought--or rather, it took longer than I had planned. I don't know what Mr. Rebholz is going to say, since I just put the part I had finished in his box on Friday. He wasn't there at that time, so I'll see him on Monday when he gets the rest. I really felt awful about not having finished on time, and I know that he is busy. Hopefully no further revisions will be needed, and then all I'll have to do is the typing, which shouldn't be too bad. I figure it shouldn't take me more than about three or four days to do the typing, if I do about fifteen or twenty pages a day. That way I won't get exhausted just typing, and I can fit it in between studying--like a "study break." I am not going to have it typed because first of all I would prefer to do it myself--that way I can make any changes I want and I can correct it as I go along--and second of all because it would be too expensive. We have to hand in the original and a carbon copy. They charge about thirty-five cents to type a page, plus another ten cents for the carbon, plus the cost of the paper. For a sixty to seventy page paper, with footnotes and bibliography and all, that is too much to be worth it.

Saturday, May 11, 1963

Dear Family, I hope that the Amados got off for Philadelphia today. It looks like it is more unusual to stay home this year than it is to go off travelling somewhere. Oh well, think off all the exciting stories you can have to tell after you make your big jaunt in June. I still can't really believe that graduation is drawing near--it's only five weeks away now. I think it's the weather that's at fault. It has been raining this week, and today, now that it cleared up, it's cold and windy. Maybe if spring would come for real then I might begin to think that the end of the quarter was also approaching. It's only my four papers staring me in the face which bring me to the realization that there's not that much time left.

I'm sure that you got the message that I called Richard last night--I asked him to call you and tell you that I was fine. He had written and suggested that I call, now that the new rates are in effect. He said to call on Friday or Sunday night, and to reverse the charges. Well, I charged the call to you instead, which I hope is all right with you. Actually, I wonder how they check on such a procedure. All I had to do was tell the operator that I wanted to charge it to your number and that was that. It would be so easy for anyone to make calls and charge them to different numbers without the person being charged ever knowing. All I had to give was a pay phone number, so they'd never be able to trace it back and locate the caller. Anyhow, it was wonderful to speak to Richard. He said that he is very busy working on his papers and his thesis--he hopes to write another chapter this weekend. He said that he won't be hearing about any of the jobs until June, which means that we have a few more weeks to wait.

Out of curiosity I asked the operator how much the new rates are. It's eighty-five cents for the first three minutes, plus ten cents tax, plus twenty-five cents for each additional minute. I don't know how much less that is than it used to be though.

Richard also wrote that his friend Alex is engaged--you can imagine how surprised Richard was at that news. But he said that he also had a few reservations upon hearing the news. It seems that the girl is someone whom Alex met through his mountain climbing club. She likes all the same things he does. But, as Richard put it, Alex has only known her for three months, he does not know her family, and he has not told his parents because he knows that they will not approve because she is not Jewish. Richard said that he did not know whether or not he was being too conservative in his reservations--I assured him that I did not think so. He said that they're planning to get married in August.

Our party on Thursday night was most enjoyable. Everyone realized that this was probably the last time we'd be getting together as a group, before we all graduate and go off to all different places. One girl is going to teach English in Africa, another girl (my friend Myrna) is going to law school here at Stanford, and the rest are going on

to graduate school. I'm the only one going into secondary teaching--the rest are going on for advanced degrees and college teaching. One boy is going to the University of Delaware, where he will be doing graduate work and also teaching half time next year. He will be teaching two classes of freshman English--that sounds like a tremendous challenge, and also an awfully frightening undertaking. One boy is going to Harvard for graduate work (he's the boyfriend of my friend Judy--the one who was over for dinner. Judy is going to stay here at Stanford and get her teaching credential next year, and then possibly go back East to teach.) The rest are going to other schools back East.

I got my essay back yesterday, with the comments. All the criticisms were certainly justified, and they showed that both readers gave careful attention to the paper.

We got our political science midterms back yesterday. They don't give any sort of grade--just points--on the exam, so it's rather difficult to know how you did. But I was well above the median, which is the dividing line between a B and a C, so I'm pretty well off. Maybe we'll hear more about the distribution of grades next week.

Now I must be off to the shopping center for a haircut. But first I have to stop at the hospital. My friend Barrie had an emergency appendectomy on Thursday night. On Thursday, returning from our history class, she had been remarking that she wasn't feeling well. She said that she had chills and felt nauseous. It sounded like a case of stomach flu, and she was going to go home and go to bed. Well, last night someone informed me that she was in the hospital, and you can imagine that I was more than a little surprised. So I'll go over now and see how she is and if there is anything I can do for her.

Love, Elaine