Odds and Ends - Thisa and Thata

Dear W,
When I went to get a record for you, I was just overwhelmed at the number and assortment of just the people you like. So, will you please get one you simply ache for - and play it until your family goes crazy?

Thank you so much for that darling picture of the elephant getting a manicure. It will be one of my prize dentries in my collection. And the one of the albino bluebird. In the article (if there were one) did it say if the rest of the babies seemed to know if he were different? I know I've read that with animals, a deformed one was shunned - as was the "runt" of the litter sometimes (cruel as humans!)

You know, every letter you send, I keep hoping for a snap shot of you with your short Princess Di hair cut. It must be so much easier to take care of.

I appoint you a committee of one to find out if Lowell, Massachusetts was named after Amy. Write to the Mayor (always go to the top person): tell him your age, and what you've just discovered about Amy's poetry and her illustrius family. And you wondered.... (I rather hope it wasn't. For as I remember Lowell, it was a cruddy industrial town). Speaking of Lowells, there used to be a satiric little quartrain (ask your parents or your grandmother)
1) _____ speak only to _______
2)______ speak only to _______
3)_____ speak only to Cabots
4) And the Cabots speak only to God.

I'm sure the Lowells were in there, and maybe the Russells. Tell me, if you find out.

I know I couldnt take (start, I mean) two languages at once. Get a year of French, then see if you want to add Spanish the second year. Will you let me get a little sentimental? I just can't tell you how much it has meant to me to have you for a "pen pal" for almost two and a half years - since May 1982. Many of the things I'd taken for granted, suddenly became fresh and exciting because of you. I love your eagerness, your enthusiasm. Your questioning. How I wish I could have had your whole family here for a prolonged visit...

Now, it's almost Christmas - and your fifteenth (15th? are you sure?) birthday the following month. What would you like from Hawaii? (Remember questions get frank answers!) And will you still want "The World" or maybe another magazine?

As I read over some of your early letters, you wanted to be a Park Ranger. Do you still want that? Get to some foreign countries first. See everything youc an.

Tell me about school and your new subjects.

Love always,
E.R.G.