May 19, 1957 Late and Lazy, Coffee and Cake, The Bomb Scare and The Flower Report

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"I'm late again but I was too lazy last night to do anything.  B has gone grocery shopping and when he gets back we are taking the kids to get new shoes.  I have been doing the shopping since he has the new job at school but I'm so far behind this week that he is doing it today.  I'm still sewing on costumes and am not done yet.  Dress rehearsal is next Wed. night so we have all been working hard.  I plan to go to school Monday morning and see if we can't get finished up or close to it.  The committee was real big but so many of them haven't done one thing & that has meant extra work for the rest of us.

Well, we have been all over town and finally found shoes for the kids.  Their feet are so narrow it is always a chore to find some.  They always cost as much as mine do, almost.

We went to a lovely coffee party Wednesday afternoon.  The people have the same kind of party every year and serve coffee and Swedish pastries that the woman makes herself.  A newspaper photographer was there and took B's picture but it may never appear in the paper.  They always take several and seldom use all of them.

That same afternoon we had a good scare.  A man called the police in Normal & said a bomb had been planted on campus and would explode that afternoon.  They sent all of the students home and locked all buildings.  The little ones were scared to death.  The others thought it was a prank which it turned out to be.  The man called back & said it was a hoax but the police searched the whole university inside and out.  They are still looking for the man who called.  Everyone was pretty disgusted as well as amused.  One little kindergarten girl was screaming her head off because she forgot and left her two best sweaters in the room and they wouldn't let her go get them.  Ann was upset but Bob thought it was a big joke to be out of school most of the afternoon.

It seems like it has rained most of the week.  We are all so tired of it.  The iris keep blooming but we can't enjoy them much with so much rain.  It ruins them fast.  A pale blue one is out today.

I have ordered some new mums and just hope they will be as nice as the picture.  There are eight different kinds and colors.

Our little locust tree is lovely.  It is just covered in blooms.  Daddy trimmed it down to such a pretty shape I hope it stays like that.  It really hasn't grown much but it is hard to tell.  We set out a pussy willow that our neighbor started for us but it looks dead.  The dahlias are up and so are the cosmos and zinnias I planted.

I wrote about my manuscript again yesterday but I really wonder if I'll ever get it back.

Hope you both are fine.  What is the Camdenton dogwood festival?"

               Lots of love,

                      Bonnie

NOTE:  Even though we were accustomed to the usual fire and civil defense drills, the bomb scare was another thing altogether and was indeed very scary.