July 16, 1966 The Hot Spell, The Air Conditioning, The Mimosa and The Bricks

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"Thank goodness, the hot spell has let up.  None of us hardly did anything except sit in the basement rec room. We're going to have the house air conditioned though, and the men are supposed to put it in next Tuesday. The unit will be put on the patio so I've been re-setting some of the bricks. I ran out of sand so B has gone to get some. I don't have to redo all of it but it has settled low next to the house and the water settle there. This is a project I've been off a long time but today is nice and I want to do it before the men set that big unit on it.

We had a letter from Bob today. He is fine but busy and his letters are awfully short. He had been skin-diving a time or two. His roommate's father is running for Representative in Va.--name is Scott.

It was hot in Chicago but we were in air-conditioned places most of the time so we enjoyed it. We spent our time mostly looking and the kids enjoyed that. B & I just sat down & let them look. Ann took a friend with her.

Summer school has been pretty hard on everyone at the high school. The building was made for air-conditioning but it isn't in yet--was promised before summer school began. Some of the rooms have sky lights but no windows so you can imagine how hot it has been. Some classes sit in the halls or have made-shift fans set up. Ann said it was a different place yesterday when it cooled off.

The mimosa tree isn't going to survive. I left it in the bucket and have kept it in the shade but it is just drying up. Send me some seeds one of these days in your letter & I'll try them.

B is back so Id better get busy with the bricks while he can help me.

We're all fine and hope you both are. Don't do much while the heat is high."

                    Lots of love,

                       Bonnie

NOTE:  After the release of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, there was a lot of outrage expressed by those who thought it was obscene.  Our mom thought Liz Taylor was a fabulous actress and defended her right to take on a very different type of role. We had lots of discussion about the film and Mom fielded a lot of jokes about Liz's role as the wife of a New England college professor.

Here's a brief scene: