1983 Catherine's letter - Aug. 13

Continued use of the red typewriter ribbon shown in this 1983 letter. Transcription follows.

Saturday, August 13, 1983

Dear Mother & Dad,

Hi! What's new in Ohio?  Madras is celebrating the Jefferson County Fair this weekend which is THE big event here.  I took the girls on Thursday evening as it was family night at the carnival with reduced prices for the ride tickets.  They really enjoyed that.  We are all going to go later this evening after Gerry gets home from work.  This morning was the parade which seemed better than usual, although that is not saying much.

Wendy has been enjoying having DeeDee here.  She flies back to S.D. on the 22nd.  We will probably be going to Portland on Sunday and staying overnight with our friends Tim & Jody who moved to Portland.  That way we will be able to see a little of Portland and it will make the trip a little easier.

Then there will only be two weeks before school starts.  We should find out in the next week or so whether Wendy will be able to go to Madras to Kindergarten this year.  We are requesting that she go to Madras so that she will have a different teacher since there may be alot of negative carry over from last year if she has the same teacher which would be the case if she goes to Metolius.  We had her tested again by the school district in May to see if there had been any improvement in her problem areas which showed up last fall.  They showed relatively little improvement and still lots of problems with hand-eye coordination which affects her ability to print and do numbers.  They suggested she have her eyes tested so I took her to the eye Dr. last week.  He said that her vision is good but her ability to follow an object with her eyes is way underdeveloped which of course is why her eye-hand coordination is not good.  This could be just slow in developing or something that she has just not had any interest in doing or ???.  We have already given our approval for the school district to give her special help with this so hopefully she will soon catch up to where she should be.  And of m course there are some ways we can help by playing toss the ball with her, and doing dot-to-dots etc.

I've been eating lots of peaches as they seem to be in their prime about now.  Gerry got some really cheap through someone at the co-op.  I read in the paper where this is supposed to be a really good year for them.  I'm still waiting for a our tomatoes to turn red.  I did pick and eat one cherry tomato but none  of the others have ripened yet.  The squash is very prolific but still have more blossoms than actual squash.  We have one winter squash plant and two acorn squash.  I guess I should say hill instead of plants as each hill has several plants.

We bought six gallons of stain (or was it 8?) in hopes of getting our house painted this fall.  It is really beginning to show signs of needing it, especially the front.  That will use up a couple of weekends.

Wendy is in hopes of continuing going to the babysitters after DeeDee leaves instead of going back to Day Care.  The babysitter, who lives about two blocks away on 1st St. babysits up to 8 girls at a time and it is much more of a home atmosphere.  It is a little more expensive but at least with Wendy in school half a day soon there will be less hours per week she will be in need of care.

The Methodist Church is having their Bible School the 22nd - 26th of August.  It was originally scheduled for June but got cancelled due to lots of conflicts and lack of teachers.  Wendy will probably be going if I can work out transportantion with someone.

Well, I better close.  Gerry will be home from work soon and we need to get ready to go to the fair.

Love, Gerry, Catherine, DeeDee & Wendy