The Day Before Dad's 50th Birthday

Pennsylvania Grand Canyon

Here is another letter that I received from Mom. This one was written a day before Dad’s birthday in 1974 when Dad was about to turn 50 years old.

Friday, July 5, 1974

Dear Judy, Dave & Cindy,

We received your cute card with the lion in the tree. I also received the other cards and letters that you sent, but I think I already told you. I sure enjoy cards. We appreciate your thinking of us.

Guess what Dad got for his birthday? A new Chevy truck. The transmission went out in our old truck. Dad got it fixed but decided it was just about time to get a new one, seeing we’ve had this one for 10 years and its going to fall apart one of these days. Dad got the new truck Wednesday and yesterday we took a ride up to Pennsylvania Grand Canyon, which is about 150 miles from here. We had to come back yesterday as Dad had to work today. The Chevy truck is not exactly yellow. It is sort of between a gold and yellow. I don’t know what color they call it. I would call it a yellowish brown. It has power steering and power brakes. It doesn’t have a camper on it yet. We plan on getting one as soon as we can. We are going to sell the boat and motor if we can, so we can get one. It’s a ¾ ton with all heavy duty stuff on it, so that should pull our trailer if we ever move again. It doesn’t ride as smooth as our other one did. It rides more like a truck. ‘Ha!’ It sure is easy to drive though with the power steering. We plan on going on another short ride tomorrow for Dad’s birthday. He says that the truck will be our anniversary present to each other. I said, “Yeah. I imagine so, and our Christmas present too for the next 3 years. They gave us $900 on our old truck as a trade-in. In fact that was the down payment. I get to make the payments on it, aren’t I lucky? They are $120 a month. That’s if I keep working.
I’ll work as long as they have work. I’ve been off for almost 3 weeks now. I go back to work Monday. I did work a couple of days last week. They had 6 of us come in and get some thing sewed and ready for the rest when everyone comes back Monday. I felt honored that they would call me in as I was the only new girl they called in. The rest have worked there several years that they called in.

You should see me now. Dad cut my hair last night, really short. That’s the way I wanted it as I’m getting tired fixing it when it doesn’t do any good in this humidity. It just doesn’t look like it has been fixed ten minutes after I take the curlers out, so I had him cut it something like LaDonna has hers. It sure feels a lot cooler.

Well, I lost another 2 ½ lbs. That makes 90 lbs total. I weight 164 ½ now, so I’m gradually getting there. Dad lost 1 ½ lbs. He’s got about 12 more lbs to lose.

I’ll bring this to a close. I hope to hear from you real soon.
Lots of Love, Mom and Dad