Well, hi, here we are, 25th of January, 1981.
And I'm just so far behind with letters tapes and everything I just don't know where to start and of course in a couple of hours the hostages will arrive and wherever the heck they're arriving West Point or something or they're going to West Point once they arrive and of course that has taken precedence over everything in the last month I guess we all know that and the 20th of January was not only father's birthday but was the day of the inauguration plus the day that the hostages were released so it became a very important day to all I don't know I've been fl out because we've been working and.
 seems to be a real bad month as far as us getting the flu last year I was second the year before be I was second this year hasn't been any different the children have all had cold Rachel's had a couple of days off school I've had a cold twice now John's had it twice just seems to be going around in circles let me see how this tapes going Well maybe I should start with telling you or I can't tell you how enjoyable it was to receive your parcel and we had it in plenty of time it was just that for some reason my letters kept coming back to me you know I've never had a letter return for shortage of postage and twice the letters that were telling you the parcel arrived both came back I was beginning to tearm the hair out and of course we were all busy before.
Christmas and everything and I was real disappointed to find out that you didn't find out until you got back from the beach but of course you left before Christmas and that didn't help mail wise I suppose because I've found I'm still getting Christmas cards from people from New Zealand this late in January some of which that came by sea you know that had been posted months beforehand and I got one Christmas card date 18th of December and Atlanta and got it after Christmas from Catthy a friend of mine so the postages were all slow but it'll start catching up again I guess but it all arrived and we were real excited and I think I.
I've got a halfcompleted tape from the kids with vi and music and goodness knowss what on it that I will try and get completed tonight and send off with this one the kids that planned to send it to you for Christmas but really I just it just all got out of hand right at the last minute and as usual January escapes everybody again although it's not the summer like it is at home where you're all on holiday it's somehow or another it's a fast month too anyway we've had very cold weather but no rain it's been just amazing freezing temperatures.
You know from time to time at night but beautiful crystal clear days and it's been so dry that you know we haven't had any ice at all much it's been very very good beautiful beautiful sunny days anyway the present from Mule for Christmas the kids just loved the elephants I think the photos will explain that and when you wrote your letter date at the 12 that I got yesterday or the day before it didn't to me seemed to register that that was the letter I posted you after Christmas with the photographs it seemed like that must have been a letter that went to you before Christmas because you didn't mention the photo of Rachel but maybe it was that one that you' got I don't know.
Anyway they just loved the elephants Everything was just great, The soap I just loved the Shiseo soap I always did like that and the perfume and the earrings and I mentioned to you the disaster with my sapphire earrings, but then that all came right again and the earring was found and I have since made the shortb for the little guy next door and so all was back and order there but the presents was great and the candy's been terrific and you know it was just great and all the books were perfect no books were duplicated or anything I think you can see by the photos that the kids had a real good time and they got lots of presents and were very happy with Christmas they've been flat out of course we're back into the you know general schedule again and maland's now doing more outside activities as well he's taken swimming lessons.
Wter swimming lessons at the way after school two days a week.
Rachel has gymnastics, he does that Mondays and Wednesday she has gymnastics Wednesdays Thursday she has choir we're not playing soccer at the moment, we don't play soccer in the winter we play in the fall in the spring there two seasons and Saturdays I just about wiped out with viollon lessons for an hour and a half and then theory lessons for an hour and a half Saturday morning and while we're doing that mate one goes to the why to take a self-defence class which he didn't want to do I asked him if he'd like to know he didn't want to do it when he was older or he told me and I went ahead and enrolled and the first day I took him down there I had to come pick him up between Rachel's music and theory class and he came out and he's just beaming and wanted to flipop me over.
Tell me all the things that he'd learned and the guy that is taking them as a Frenchman and he's been teaching them a little bit of French as well into the bargain so he's really doing very well at that if he gets through this class, which is just a winter class he'll then go into a fullfledged di suppose kate or whatever they call it judo class and he told me that he needs to have an outfit at that point which is $25 a little gown thing and he's pretty keen on the whole thing so I think he'll continue with that and I'll be real good for him and this course works out very well because it's Saturdays which he can't do when he's playing soccer but if he gets through this then the full course is during the week twice a week and Saturdays which they let them the Saturday if they're into soccer because they can.
Always do the both, although some Saturdays, they will be able to depending on the time of their game.
Tells me that the teams go away and challenge teams out of town, so he's often quite forward to really doing well at that.
Rachel was doing real well with the violin and I don't know whether Mara sent you a photo that World to took at Christmas but Christmas night we had a little, you know.
Solo performance with Rachel. and of course she had wanted that all the kids at school are wearing into fake nails and I told her she couldn't have any of those, but anyway, she got some a Christmas stocking. well they're the most holi, the blacks all left to have long fingernas you know and they wear these fake nails which had just hideous anyway, I've throw some real cheap dollar ones into a bag and she only wore them the one day the novel he wore off the theme things were more falling off than they are on but the night that Walter and Marsha and F and Jack and all them were here Christmas night these goddamn nails on she insisted on giving them a viin solo with these sully long nails on and I got the photo from Mara just yesterday that Walter had taken and heres Rachel playing the viin with these hideous nails on.
Anyway, but she's doing really well and enjoying it, that's the main thing and the class she's taking during school time that's aside from the class that we take on a Saturday that at Northside High school that's a fine arts class which for the public schools but it's of course run separately from their own school she does the hour and a half of music which is the Suzuki method which is different to the she's learning to play just the classic method at school and it I thought maybe a problem to her but I spoke to her music teacher at school and she said no that Rachel was keen enough that it would not hinder her in any way and there's a few things probably that overlap and do not agree upon but we sort those out and she enjoys it but you know it's like anything.
The third graders start playing the violin and mate.
I sign up, you know, there's10 of them sign up and of course by the time your first terms finished the half of them are dropped out and Rachel is about the only one left in her class that is still going to Ireland apparently some of them their parents think they're still going but they take the violences to school and such each Wednesday Friday but don't necessarily front up at the class and M Fcher, the teacher has to go find them and she's just so proud of reach because she's always there on time and she's keen So she really likes it which is just great you know that's half battle I wouldn't keep a you know going unless she was enjoying it So we have two vis at the moment because we rented one and you get one free from the school of Art Northside School of Arts just done till May that you can't have it during the summer so she's using the smaller one from them.
I'm using the other one because I have to learn as well but we're really enjoying it and the year and a half theory is just fantastic she has this teacher called Mr. Thompson and he's I guess about 24 and real young and he's fair and he's good looking and he's just got at all over those damn Catholic nuns that I had and he makes it interesting I wouldn't miss his theory class for anything he's just terrific and each second week we have one week on theory and one week on musical history and he's taught them so much and last week you know they finally he has done all the periods Renaissance and baroque and so with them.
And he noted to the children that there was only one American amongst all the composers or that he had to have on the board, you know, Copeland was the only one there and they didn't understand why there was only one American anyway, but then this week he asked them who Lennon Bernstein was and they all say we don't know and he's real cute he says to them you know how kids always say, good afternoon, Master Thompson and a why he sort of way or he's always one step ahead of them and when he asks them a thing like that he always says, we ain't know before they do and they all going to a stir and he says to them things like now I have ways of making you learn these things and they all go there are.
And he says we chop off your arms and beat you with them and then he says, if they don't know about something or the parents have never told them he blames the parents and he says, now I have punishments the parents who have not exposed their children to this kind of thing, theyre classical music, he says you bring them along next Saturdayam we have punishments for them."
And anyway he said, well you know who was Leonard Bernstein and nobody knew and he said have you heard a Westside story and nobody had heard a Westside story and he starts oh he puts his head in his hands and you know pulls his hair out and all this stuff so then he starts to sing a few things you know Maria and they all go and then he ducks things like have you heard of the surprise symmphony and they all go no and so he goes" buddy bum buddy bumdy you know they all jump out of their seat oh he's really terrific and he's just got them learning so much between that and cho with Mi?
Because she teaches the kids quite a bit about theory and notes and stuff there Rachel's just picked up theory very easily, she's got the whole thing together and a lot of the kids have got pianos which of course she doesn't have she goes down and looks at sunnies and sees where metal seas and the scales and stuff but he gives them little tests on how many notes you know up to be flattened down to the sharps and flats and stuff and she's just got she understands the whole thing it's terrific so that'll make a big difference in her understanding of the music and we had a little soul over.
In the music violin class on Saturday and the kids are doing pretty well and the teachers are all thrilled with everybody, but they all played, you know, and Rachel was the only one that played without a mistake, but not only was she without a mistake. her music sounded good, you know, So it's just horr, She seems to which is part of whether you've got a good sound of the violin, of course as the.
Poure and she seems to be in position she seems to have been able to hold the violin not really nicely so that's great and well Christmas was very nice you know we all had a tree and it was all very exciting but you know it's such a busy time and everything goes bananas the shops are so down full of people and everything and then it was all over and back to school and so on and so I've been working patsy is just a luna attack I mean you just wouldn't believe how many people are after that woman she never pays an account.
Just awful she's got lawsuits against her. I mean, I just can't begin to tell you what I' miss that that woman is in, but she handles it all and she's off to Egypt. She left for Egypt last night with a group and she'll be wandering around the office saying, oh I'm just so depressed I'm so depressed. I just don't want to go away and I don't need this tro and everything on the next thing someone will call and she'll be chatting away to them and she'll tell them oh, I'm off to Egypt I'll be floating down the aisle on Saturday you know and put they just she really is a wild woman. I mean that places isnt such a mess. she never throws anything out but she starts a new file for just about everything that ever comes on so there's files.
Everything all over the office and if you say well I can't find it she's like it's there and it is there but it's just simply a matter of putting your finger on it or where you know it's just amazing she's got everything in the office she could possibly imagine from computers to typewriter that you know will type a letter and then type 100 on them the same and all that stuff much of which is not used a great deal but she's just unreal I mean to me it seems like she's bordering on then taken over at any moment she's forever getting in trouble with the ATC the air traffic conference for not paying a draft on time because they debit you.
You have to give them authorization the week before and they did you automatically and inevitably we're running around two days after the thing was supposed to go through looking for another 5000 bucks or something to cover the bank because if they bounce they cost you 100 a time and it wouldn't be the first time Patsy's had to pay that I mean that business has run little loss ever since she's had up from what I can gather it's just a great tax loss and but she sold three Mercedes asked week says this other company called For wheels but she never gets ahead of it never well and has no hope of ever doing so you Mash from Walres usual been good to the kids thisher gave them the cutest little thing she was disappointed she said she got maybe Maitland was too young but they were those rocks with the whole little big rock with a whole lot of little rocks on top and they've all got little eyes on them little plastic eyes you that move.
And there was a thing up and it's got rock concert written along the up really cute and she thought Maham might have been a bit young, but he enjoyed it other it was great actually Rachel's choir mistress had been given one and it had the choir mistress up front and all the little.
Forest in the, you know, looking at her and all the eyes were on her. and she thought it was a very good example.
No what a quiet should be that they're all looking that her she was going to keep it up in front of them all the time.
Well I guess you said David and Dorothy had a quiet Christmas well we did too really and we didn't do a whole lot, we mess around and enjoyed a few things that were on round town and went to a few movies with the kids and stuff and.
What else have you mentioned that's been big, oh the Thomas thing really is just unbelievable isn' not I don't know it's just got completely out of him the amount of money involved and everything else, I just sort of can't quite see why it had to be settled up quite the way it was but you sort of lose track of it a bit here even though the clippppings.
Explain it, I just can't see why they had to go a complete turn, I mean it's just absolutely unprecedented in New Zealand legal circles or whatever, it's just unreal.
But I don't know it's certainly going to cost plenty to fix that ladder up and certainly there's a lot of ill dealing with the police and so on well of course you know we're now to our 17th murder 14 are definitely murders three of which is still missing and one was just last week happened again and it's just getting to the point where it's ridiculous.
Do you know, you've heard of Donna Hugh, he's one of these interviewers that's on in the mornings, nine o'clock in the morning every day and bit like move.
Well this aside too was saying that Merck Wolf from Johnny Carson type guy anyhow he came to Atlanta last week and did one of his programs on this missing and murdered children thing I never had anything so ridiculous I don't know if it's been on television yet I don't think it has but he came into town saying that there was all kinds of questions about this and that he felt like he should get to it and find out what's going on and he said that.
He had the feeling like many people outside of Georgia do that there's some white guy tear around murdering black children, but he said now that he's done the program, he realizes that he's cleared up a few false ideas that he had and that other people had and that he doesn't really feel like it's a white guy as far as I'm concerned it couldn't possibly be a white guy, that many kids do not go off with a white person when we've had that much publicity about it or anything without you kicking up a fars it's got to be a black person believe, and he said he came in with these false ideas he now goest.
way not knowing what to think because really it's very complicated the cases definitely do not have a similar pattern as they did with the you know the Yorkshire Strper Riper or Riper or whatever it was calling himself in England recently they just have got no real I guess they must be something they were like but honestly you wouldn't believe it just the murder that oh no just a couple of weeks ago they found two bodies skeletons that'd been there a while and it was two kids that had gone missing last summer and they found the bodies real near one another.
I can't remember now whether the two children that the two bodies were disappeared around about the same time or not, which is interesting anyway they find these two things well not only are the cops there, the Atlanta cops, the FBI were with them, damn me if the medical you know the pathologist can't find enough damn information and bones and stuff says there'' things missing I mean you know important things like one skull was missing and so he heads off high towels that down to the scene of where they found the bodies himself.
And scouts around and finally finds significant parts to enable him to do you know the research to find out who the hell these people were and of course he just kicks out Bobsy die, he's going to sue the government and everybody else because apparently the cops must have just roared in there and bulldoze through that place and let you know the obvious thing you just don't touch any evidence and you know rope it off so that they can get in there and go through it with a fine tooth comb, we saw some pictures recently where they were checking the ground on England after one of the murders, just men at shoulder the shoulder on their hands and knees, you know, combing through the.
The ground around the area And here the cops here just gone with dont know mighty bulldozs, I think and ripped through it and find they've only got half the evidence but really was there anyway, so there was a great few inqui there's been some people sacked or demoted in the meantime until they've been able to from the missing persons bureau police department or somewhere because of the bad way in which this was done but okay so the cops here all that well trained, maybe you can accept that, but the fact that the FBI or with them just absolutely sense me for I can't understand that I mean surely they have got more.
 than to go in and do a thing like that. anyway, So it goes on. It's unsolved. And I gather from.
Gospel, hears say or newspaper, whatever I haven't been reading the papers as much as I usually do lately, but they don't seem to think that it's one person it couldn't be one person doing so many and this kid that went missing last weekend he was just standing at the bus stop waiting for a bus to get or basketball game or something and his body was found a long way from.
Most of the murders have happened within an area of a certain area of town, but it doesn't seem to run that they're the same age anymore that there's been 14 and 15 year olds and there's been you know young nine year olds but I think the one that shocks everyone was the child that was taken from her bed and the murderer had to climb over the bed of an older brother who he did not disturb to get this little girl and ran off out of the house whether it just seems ridiculous I thought there must be other circumstances with that one at first you know family dispute or something but there wasn't this kid was just taken from a bed and they found a body, so just terrible and how long it's going to go.
We don't know, I' in 17, it's heading to being as bad as that one for that guy.
 was his name Casey or whatever from Chicago. that was 32, but of course, they were kids that weren't really.
And you know.
Suggested that they were missing, even they were usually older.
However, let's get on to brighter things. Well, David's coffee pot should be arriving shortly, I can't think when I sent that, but I sent the other parcel to you, which I've sent, which is your birthday Christmas combined thing which you will receive in March. Ill start wondering what year these things before. well, I don't know. I sent that on 16th of December. So I guess at the absolute outside, you should have it by the 16 February. that's December January March, maybe three months. But the coffee pot I sent before that. So I expect to hear from you in the next month or so about that. And just whether it goes or not.
Oh and the other thing I must mention to you on that is of course I sent away for my stupid rebate and they sent back and said that they didn't you know not enough information I have to send the warranty so please send me the warranty and stuff when you get it and I'll send it in thoughts you know really I just knew that would happen they're so stupid and I'd written a great long letter and then they wrote back as they hadn't even read the letter you know and just took the cycl style form made me so angry so please send me the information so that I can prove that I bought it there at least I've had correspondence with them and they know that it's gone past the date you had to apply but they can jolly well pay out on that.
.
Anyway, what else has new Al Clara over the road hasn't been too good she got like Christmas night I think it was well she was at home for a while, she's got a clot on the leg or whatever you know bar or whatever the hell they called her.
And.
Anyway, they thought they'd treat her at home well that went on for a while a couple of weeks I suppose and then she went to hospital last week and last Saturday Rachel we went shopping and Rachel bought her a great big crrysanthemum you know one that's growing it apart our purple one and we took it down she Rachel went with bar bo came picked her up she wore a kids skin glove and off they went down to the hospital and Claire hed told clear in the afternoon she was just so excited that Rachel was going to visit because you know the problem with her straight was that she forgot everything and that and was learning again well she's had to stop doing any of that and of course she's getting worse and gets confused and.
I mean she knows in her mind what she wants to say it's getting it out and because she's been sick, she hasn't been able to do any studying and you know she was really improving a lot last year and then she got kind of family came to stay and all kinds of things hasled her and so now she's kind of really getting if not worse back to where she was and can't really communicate all that well and she just knows what she feels she gets real excited about rage being there but she's home again today she came home on Friday and I think she's going to be all right I was a bit concerned well heard she'd gone into hospital because they said you know.
It's a clock moves up to her heart that's it, so she's really not well and I hate to think what might happen because oh Bob, he's like 74 or something.
Of course he knew stops thinking about money I but we talks about money all the time how much everybody's got and so on and so forth from what it costs to do this and how much it costs to get the ambulance to go down to the three miles to Piba Hospital and everything and by the time Rachel got back from the hospital I said they night she knew exactly how much each news was costing each hour of the day at the hospital and how much the hospital bid was costing and oh I'm sure he's insured for it all but you know he just constantly ds on the cost of things and even Rachel was getting it and she listened you know so intently and I'm sure she brings a lot of hyp.
To clear because she doesn't see her own middle kids and stuff.
But she's home. And I think she'll be okay, hopefully.
I think it was the weekend before last year, part of which is on the tape the other tape I'm gonna to seen with this one that the kids have made, John went down to see these little, they're not little, they weighed 20 tons of something these manatees which Jacque Huteow has done a program on they live in the river, the Manatee River down in Florida because he went down with another dentist from Mariettta and they do underwater fishing and stuff you know diving and scuba diving and they had underwater cameras and all that he's got some great photos apparently taken underwater that he's going to get developed but it was the one weekend.
That it froze in Florida, you know, they've lost nearly, I think almost half the orange crop. They've had a disaster down there. It's just been so cold and that was the weekend they went down there and they just came home early, they got back, they went Thursday afternoon and I expected them back Sunday night but they got back on5 o'clock Sunday morning they were home they must have driven all night they were so cold. they said it was unpleasant they did what they had to do you know they went swimming in everything that made John's cold worse because it was bitterly cold he said at the last minute decided to take us cold This is way down just above if you look on the map above St Petersburg there's the Manates river around there somewhere so it's real down, it shouldn't have been that cold just never gets that cold down there but of course Florida is not geared for cold weather they don't have heating on a lot of the motels, you know.
And they just here they all went down to great camp, a typical Americans go down to camp have all the gear and then stand a motel which is just typical so anyway he was back early but they have some terrific pictures of these things they just stay there while the weather is a little cooler and they're like whales they're huge big things and very friendly you can rub them and swim around them and but they're protected because they are so docile they have these beady little eyes that are no bigger than ours but these huge huge bodies and they're covered in scars from speedboat motors that have gone up the river and chomped the backs out of them they're just terrible Miss John said and they.
Traffic cops on the river there and he said, you'll see a speed boatat come along andll suddenly the signs everywhere you know no speeding and they'll turn off the engine real quick, but it's too late you see the cops ro down the jetty and into the abo and rush out and give them a ticketer that're pretty strict apparently but while they were there it was good although it was so cold for them it was good for seeing the manatees because there's a warm spring there it's called crystaltal Springs I think which was interesting remind us of New Zealand and they were hovering around the spring because it was a little warmer I guess anyway I've heard a couple of things about New Zealand recently which were let me think no yeah that's right there was a woman on at work who was getting down to New Zealand and she'd been from that was quite funny because she was.
Ch of that minister that was here and I had them here over for afternoon tea or morning tea one day with Be and Marcia.
 shed been from their church and she was going to be going to see them, they were back now there in Roa and she was going to go and visit them while she was down there.
As you can hear I'm still full of a cold it's just been terrible and all of Patsy was sick for about a week she got this terrible flu with the pains and the stomach and stuff everybody seems to be getting it I have not had that Rachel seemed to get that and Sony's had it and all her kids have been home and laying too I think and I didn't get that I just got this awful cold which gets you in the nose and sort of sin see and all that stuff and then no sooner had we you kind of recovered a little from that and it came back again and I sort of a double dose and I had that like earlier in the week.
I mean I've still got it and you I guess it's because we tear out in this weather it looks so pretty outside it's just terrific but it's bitterly cold oh I guess the kids are the most important thing that's happened I guess as far as the children are concerned is that you know Rachel's gbil I tell you what you might like to get a gbble they're real cute and I've done a hell of a lot of studying about them now but gbils are rodents of course but they they're nicer them hamsters and one of the other things oh guinea pigs they all smell gbils do not smell they're very clean they don't smell and we had one you know called Jby that's Rachel's.
which we had since first bred them in the classroom well Maitland decided that he would like or Rachel decided she'd like to get a mate for Jrby and Maitland said well it would be his so we went shopping last Sunday and we'd spent all day Saturday shopping sat afternoon after we'd all finished our things we went looking and we couldn't find one we we went to a couple of places and they didn't either have them they seemed to be out of stock last week or whatever well we finally found one at.
They didn't have any at this came outt we went to and I didn't know that would be a good place to buy one anyway they had a hamster and it looked real cute it was a asleep and it had its hair, it hair was the same cut as maitland's hair and he decided it might be real cute well then the man we got the man over to get this thing out that we could buy well the damn thing woke up and not looked around at us and honestly that thing probably has never seen three such funny faces all our chins just dropped it was in hamster and it was the ugliest looking thing I've ever seen it was fat and ugly and we all just went oh no we don't want that and the man must have thought we were.
Because we did want it then wet we could possibly take that one it was too ugly so he put it all back again and finally we all went Sunday to a pit shop and hunt and high and low and of course Maitland gets to the pit shop and gets completely distracted and wants to byshaant and snakes and everything but them jubil we can get there anyway we finally found one he said that's the one I want we had to chase it around the cage and get it we've got it home well we had to do all this reading in case they attacked one another that they have just fallen madly in love they have got a just married science beltiYE written by Rachel if you please on the side of the cage and they just so happy together it's unbelievable and hopefully she'll be on heat between four and10 days which is like we've had them on exactly a week today so after 10 days then it'll be the gas station periods like 24 days we shall have hopefully some little ju.
Strangely enough Patsy's vet called the other day and said that her dogs were due for some injection or whatever and I said to the girl I'm sorry could you spell that, whatever it was she'd ask me acid because I don't know what don't have a dog I said but we do have gbils and she said, " oh how exciting and gave me about 15 minutes of her time on how and what we should do for the little gbble so that they don't eat one another etca apparently the female we'll eat the babies if she's got a vitamin deficiency so we had to go and buy 6 worth of goddamn vitamins to go in the water.
Anyway, it's real exciting and we Patsy came around here to put me up last Sunday because we wanted to go down and get this damn computer back together which is in such a mess for the billing and she arrived about four we' were all sitting around the dining room table with the ger in the middle of the table watching just so fascinating it says in the book that they knew privacy or them last Monday morning you know he couldn't wait to get up and see them and he woke up and he came room to me and he saidOh he said when I woke up he said they were doing it he said but they stopped when they saw me because that wasn't privacy seen it in the books anyway but they seem as happy as anything they're building a little.