September 24, 1961 A Week on the Kitchen Floor, A Plain Black Dress, Twilight Sleep, Dag Hammarskjold and Life is Peculiar

Dear Mother & Daddy,

"We're up to our ears in school again.  While I'm glad it has started, I wish our busy-ness could come on gradually & not at once.  Of course, that's dreaming.  The kids seem quite happy about school & Scout meetings have started regularly, too.

Bob stayed all night with a friend last night & went to the first high school football game.  Bob was to help raise the flag to open the game so he wore his Scout uniform.  It rained during the game so I know his clothes will be a mess when he gets home.

Ann had a friend stay all night with her, too, & now she has gone to a birthday party.

I spent almost all week on the kitchen floor but finally got most of the old plastic off.  I used 3½ qts. of remover & the stuff almost chokes you but with the help of a scraper I took the stuff off inch by inch.  The floor almost looks new so it was worth all the time & sore muscles that it took.  I'd never make a good chore woman for my knees got so red & sore I could hardly touch them.  I thought I'd never get done because I had to stop so many times to do other things but the weather was dry & warm so I kept at it while I could have the house all open.  Now it is waxed & clean.

The temperature has dropped again but I'm glad for the reception for new faculty is tomorrow & it is always so hot to dress up.  I finally found a plain black dress to wear & that is all I have that is new. 

I guess Marjorie has left by now.  I had hoped to get a letter written to her but didn't get it done.  I hope she will like her new job.

Bob is still getting along fine with his teeth.  It seems to be bothering me worse than it does him.  I thought I had told you he would have four teeth pulled to make room in his mouth for the ones that have pushed out of place in front.  I took him to a dental surgeon & they gave him "twilight sleep".  He didn't know anything about it & didn't have any pain afterwards.  It just made him groggy for about an hour & he kept laughing & joking about that.  He got real disgusted with me when I tried to get him to rest that afternoon & just went ahead with his chemistry experiments.  The dentist put the wire on the uppers & started pulling them in this week.  That is the slow part for it has to be done so gradually.  It will be months before we'll begin to see any difference.

Yes, it is terrible that Dag Hammarskjold was killed.  Surely, the world will get straightened out one of these days.  I cannot believe that any country, as a whole, would want to keep things in such a mess but the wrong rulers seem to have so much power.  Life is certainly peculiar -- so good for some and so terrible for others.  No wonder so many people keep asking themselves, "Why?".

My ironing board has been up in the study all week.  I finally finished the ironing so I'd better get it put away.

Hope you both are fine."

                     Lots of love,

                           Bonnie

NOTE:  Dag Hammarskjold was the second Secretary General of the United Nations.  During a mission to negotiate a cease fire of the Civil War in the Congo, the aircraft in which he was traveling crashed in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), killing him and 15 others.  The circumstances were considered suspicious.  He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, posthumously.

The following is video footage at the scene of the crash.  There is no audio.