Saturday, October 24, 1998

Dear Steven, Grandy, Pappy, Grandmother, and Granddaddy,

I've had a very quiet week around here. Steve has been in England all week, and David was at science camp (or outdoor school) from Tuesday through Friday. Of course Michael was at school during the day and at band practice two nights, so I was all alone most of the time.

My minivan wouldn't start last Saturday morning, so Steve checked the battery. It was okay, but we didn't have time to take the car in to see what was wrong. Therefore, I ended up skipping church and driving Steve to the San Francisco airport so that I could keep his car. He had driven your car, Steven, on Saturday and decided that the clutch is slipping too much to risk driving it that far under those circumstances. We'll have to get your car worked on, too, before you start using it again very much. Michael calls it his car now, but we remind him that he can't drive yet.

Steve returned home about 2:00 p.m. this afternoon and said that he had a good trip and got accomplished what he wanted to do. He was tired and took a nap, but we have symphony tickets tonight, so he is up again.

Michael has a band competition today in Pleasanton (in the east bay). He left the house at 6:15 this morning and won't be back until midnight. He has made friends with a senior, Ryan (one of the two drum majors), and Ryan offered to pick him up and bring him back home. Hooray! They meet at the school for these events and ride a bus. The band boosters provide lunch and dinner and snacks for 150 kids and their chaperones. I sent a huge potato salad as my contribution for today. It was raining hard this morning, so I suspect the parade was canceled, but the sky is blue now, so I hope they get to perform tonight. Michael has been really excited all week in anticipation.

David is asleep right now. He had a great week at Camp Campbell in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Boulder Creek. He had one full day hike in the mountains and activities (studying nature) around the camp the other days. He was in a cabin with seven other boys and two counselors. His science teacher was with them most of the week, but his core (language arts and social studies) teacher went there for one day. David's biggest news was that he saw a tarantula one foot away from his feet in the shower. He returned yesterday in time for a shower and then went to a friend's house. They went to Blackberry Farm's haunted walk last night, and it was wonderfully scary. Afterwards, he spent the night with John and didn't come home until noon today. His soccer game was rained out.

I cleaned the house early in the week and enjoyed it remaining that way all week as there was very little traffic through it. I walked with friends two mornings--always enjoyable. Thursday I was a substitute teacher for David's core teacher while he was at science camp. Because his sixth graders were not there, I also substituted for another teacher for some of her classes. She had to be out for an emergency, and the school had a hard time finding a sub on such short notice. Steven, Mrs. Strand and Miss Signorelli (and Mr. Sluga) asked about you and said to tell you hello. That was a fun day. On Friday, I took Sherry Gray to Stanford hospital. She is the church friend who had a double lung transplant in July. She had to have a bronchoscopy. We met at the church at 7:45 and I drove us to Stanford. She was able to leave by 2:00 p.m., so I drove her home and returned to pick up David by 3:30. I also had prepared her a meal for that evening so that she wouldn't have to think about it. She was doing well but was somewhat wobbly.

Steven, thanks for your response concerning the Thanksgiving tickets. I haven't talked to Joyce again about whether she was able to get electronic ticketing or not. I have been wondering whether your classes were affected by the protests of students and professors concerning affirmative action. I was reading about it in the newspaper, but the paper seemed to concentrate more on the Berkeley campus here. I hope you have a good week. Is the warm weather still holding? We have not had our usual warm September and October here. Did you remember to change your clocks?

We are looking forward to the Sunday phone calls. We have theater tickets tomorrow night, but that should not interfere with the phone calls. Everyone have a good week!

Love,