May 20, 1967 The Telephone, The Kids, The Draft and The Peonies

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"I've spent most of the week on the telephone, it seems. I agreed to be a committee chairman for the Faculty Women's Club so I've had to do a lot of telephoning. That work should be fairly complete before summer is over.

Wednesday night we went to a dinner for our retiring president and that was a nice affair. B drove to Wellington, Illinois last night and gave a speech for their Honors program. They honored students from 3rd grade thru high school. Our high school honors day was Thursday and Ann's name was called three times I think. The kids just stand up when their names are called unless there is a medal and there are a few. Ann should have had the music medal but they hadn't come. She got one just like it last year so she doesn't even care if she gets it.

Bob will probably be home a few days before starting his summer work. He has his room rented and will do yard work, probably, for part of the rent. He called last Sunday evening and was fine. He thinks he has to have a car or motorcycle this summer. The motorcycle is out so we've been looking at used cars. I don't know what we'll end up with but we're going to look again this afternoon.

B is in an all-day meeting at school and I have to take Ann to the foot doctor. We've gone to a skin specialist but the warts are still there.

We don't talk to Bob about the draft. I just hope and pray he will never have to go. One of his high school classmates was killed in Vietnam this week but I didn't know the boy. I didn't even tell Bob about it. If you talk about these things you can worry yourself to death and it doesn't do a bit of good. I just wish the U.S. would bring our boys all home and let things work themselves out. The world criticizes us terribly for every move, anyway, so let them have to worry awhile.

I have two iris blossoms but won't have many more. The peonies are full of buds but look as if it will be awhile before they open. It's cool again today so that will slow things up again. I tried pulling some weeds yesterday but the ground was awfully hard even after all the rain. We had a few sunny days & it dried out in a hurry.

I must get ready to go with Ann so bye for now."

                     Lots of love,

                           Bonnie

NOTES:  It's safe to say that we all loved music. Mom once said she preferred hers to be "quiet and slow, like Nat King Cole".  Her only requests to "turn it down" would occur when she was on the phone. It's interesting to note that the women's magazines were full of Q/A columns about long hair, music and the clothes kids were wearing, but rarely if ever, covered the war in Vietnam or the draft.

If interested, listen below to bits of popular songs from 1967.