Friday September 19
Dear Andrew and John,
Pretty quiet the last two days. Ann got a call from Aunt Tillie that she'd like to visit and will meet us at the movie in Towson on Sunday at one o'clock; so that saves me ten miles. But you really don't notice it after a while. I just sit there from home to Towson and listen to the radio or just think about some problem and you don't have change gears once. I'm still experimenting with York Road vs Charles Street and find that the shorter way, Charles Street down to Guilford and then over to Calvert Street to downtown is a steadier pace. I'm still going at school and plan to continue for the first couple of weeks in October now until I see how things settle down financially. Counting our expeditions to the grocery stores, we're burning about 15 gallons of gas a week at 27¢ & 29¢ a gallon and traveling nearly 300 miles each week. So that's what I want to adjust to our new way of life where before the speedometer didn't show a 50 mile a week jump sometimes.
We have issued an ultimatum for one thing to leave the house, especially in anticipation of your return--spiders. If you have some beauts over there, wait till you've seen ours. Stevie had one cornered in the hall on Monday larger than his big fat hand and it took me a half a can of Flit and an old comic book to subdue him. I think it's getting ready for the fall that has them looking around inside. Yesterday morning Ann was making our bed and as she brushed the sheet smooth up under the pillows, she felt something. She flipped over the pillow (mine) and there was another with a four inch wingspread. They are wasp waisted with very large and very black upper and lower bodies and have those muscular and hairy legs you see in pictures of tarantulas, they must he related. Ann told me about the one in the bed just as we were turning down the spread last night and I spent the next quarter of an hour with a flashlight under the bed inspecting each of the springs and any likely hiding place. Where they come from I do not know for the floors are new and solid and the screens are on like storm windows from the outside but we'll get them or get ourselves in the process. What I mean by that is that we don't know if the tummy aches Ann, Arlene and I had the first three days of this week were from a virus that's going around or if we're inhaling too much of these sprays. We have no worry from the usual mice or rats as Doctor has the place under a five year contract with Baltimore Fumigators. Arlene was laying on the lawn in the backyard and letting the kids roughhouse with her when we heard her yell Wednesday. Kathy said look at the cute little worm and Arlene turned her heard I mean head to find a garter snake looking her in the eye. They're harmless but it startled her and the kids are apparently fearless of anything and are getting used to dogs. Stevie always has loved them and slobbers all over every one he meets.
Arlene was sitting on the front parch after school Wednesday with Mike and Kathy and a kid came tearing up Long Green Pike in a hot rod. She didn't know him but he leaned out to yell something at her as he turned into Hydes Road at our corner and went straight through the fence on the opposite corner, owned by this Mr. Flaccus of the telephone number mixup I told you about. Arlene jumped up to see if he was hurt but by that time he had backed the car out of the mess and away he went. He tore down enough fence to drive a tractor through and as this Mr. Flaccus puts some of his small Black Angus cattle in that field Ann gave him a call for which he was thankful. I saw the car that did the job yesterday morning when Arlene yelped as she was going out the front door for her bus and it was and is a combination of a Chevy chassis of the 20's mounted on an old Ford, is painted bright red and has "44 Junior" lettered on the back; so Flaccus shouldn't have any trouble finding him.
They have two dogs next door but they never let them out of the yard. One is a pedigreed cocker named Midnight and the other her son, Puddles. Puddles is about six months old and is the reason they're never allowed out. Midnight got out about a year ago and when she had six of what they thought were the cutest little cockers, they didn't know how, but they clipped their tails in good cocker fashion and kept one. As Puddles grew, they found from inquiries that Midnight had gone up the hill that night to see Pierre, also very high class but a French Poodle and now Puddles is the darndest looking thing with the silky coat of his mother and the long neck and legs of his father and the clipped tail when they thought he was a cocker.
END OF LETTER
Next Posting: September 22, 1952
Copyright 2012 Stephen A Conner
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