Sunday, March 20, 2016

September 21, 1974 The London Symphony, The Tomato Preserves, The 12 Pints of Pickles and The Quilting Lady


Dear Mother,

"We have been to a dinner but got home earlier than usual. Tuesday night we went to the first concert of the year at school. It was the London Symphony and the music was beautiful. There was a reception for them afterwards but there were so many people there we didn't stay long. I don't care much about meeting entertainers anyway.


I've been sewing this week and haven't done much else. I finished a jacket dress just in time for the change in weather. It is real cool and fall-like tonight. The furnace came on by itself.



Our friends have been bringing us tomatoes so I used some which Beulah gave me and made some preserves this morning. I made only a half batch and ended up with three glasses. It was hardly worth the time but I didn't want to use up too many tomatoes or too much sugar either.


The cucumbers Aunt Nora gave me made 12 pts. of pickles besides the ones I saved to eat. I made bread & butter pickles which I had made before. B's mom had some lime pickles Aunt Nora had made and they were delicious. I wished for that recipe.


We got home about 8:00 Sunday evening but never stopped to eat any lunch. After eating the snack with you we just weren't hungry at noon so we waited until we got to Springfield and ate supper there.

 I haven't even looked for the thread yet but will try to soon. I just got to thinking about my quilting lady and called her. She hasn't been quilting but said she hadn't forgotten me and would call me someday. I gathered everything together for a quilt & have it ready to take when she does call. I still have four tops to get quilted and may attempt one with the hoops if she doesn't start quilting again.

This isn't much letter but there isn't much to write. Hope you are still resting lots so your back will get better. We enjoyed being home and hope we can come again before too long."

                    Love,

                       Bonnie

NOTE: Dad loved classical music and among his favorite performances was that of the London Symphony. During my high school years I can clearly recall hearing his albums at full volume on the stereo, with him humming along. Below, his favorite.


2 comments:

  1. Speakin' o' tomatoes, one more Rancho Cordova tale. All through August and September, the tomato harvest was in full swing and open trucks loaded to the brim would fly up and down the freeway. The first few times we saw red splats on the pavement, we were really concerned that some one or thing had been hit by a vehicle. Finally we saw a couple of good ol' 'maters roll off a truck and we realized we'd not seen blood, just 'mater.
    I remember, too, there was a vegetable drink called "Sacramento Tomato Plus" that advertised pretty heavily on TV. Don't think we ever tried it but we sure ate our share of tomatoes in salads!

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  2. That's a fun story! I looked up the juice and found that it's very popular and has good reviews on Amazon:-) I've never heard of it. If there's a common food theme throughout the decades of letters, it's tomatoes. A few years ago on the way to Nags Head we saw lots of open trucks full of green tomatoes not far from your neck of the woods. Must have been a processing plant near by. Thanks for sharing that good memory!

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