Mar. 2, 1985
Dear Judy, I have neglected you for quite a while. This has been a very busy time for me. I have a hunch that maybe I am getting slower and have a little less energy. It has sure been a time of looking after the stock and eating and the rest of the time sleeping. I am looking forward to warm and even hot weather. Sleeping is a chore unless I get up and rest the shoulders about every two to three hours. Just a trip to the bathroom and stoking the stove does the thing that needs to be done. It is no use lying there waiting for the ache to go away. It won't until one gets on the feet for a minute or two. It really isn't all that hard to live with but I sure am looking forward to warm weather. I think it will ease up in the summer. The next day after Christmas I woke up with a sort of empty feeling (depression is really too strong a word). Just a normal low after the holiday high. I just wanted to share the feeling with you because I think you probably go through those cycles too. I always felt the most let down after I had visited J.F.'s dad. That was probably because I felt very close to him. Well anyway that post holiday blues feeling didn't have long to last. When I started to feed I found a heifer with calving problems. So much for depression; there was no time for it. You get the idea? Busy people don't have time for it. It reminds me of the time years ago when my sister Rosa was to "work out" for the first time. When I was a kid that expression simply meant that one would work away from home. Uncle date Quackenbush (a brother of mother's) was going to pick her up in the afternoon and she would help his wife during harvest. We played all day as if there would be no tomorrow. We did not talk about what was really on our minds, we just wanted to capture the present and keep it forever. Why? I think it was because we both sensed that a period in our lives was over. She would not be home much after that. It worked out that way because it was not long after that, when she went to Colorado and kept house for Wallace while she went to high school at the Squirrel Creek School about 20 miles east of Fountain, Colo. On May 7, 8 and 9, 1985 there will be a reunion of all who served aboard the U.S.S. Trenton CLII. I served from May 1941 until July 1944. It will be at a place called Pigeon Creek, Tenn. That is in the middle of the Great Smoky Mountains about 50 miles S.E. of Knoxville. Mary said that you were thinking of going back that way on vacation. If you are interested, we would be happy for you to go at the same time.
as ever, Dad