This is the latest installment in a series of letters written by my grandfather Robert (born on Sept. 17, 1916) to his mother. If you are new, you will want to start with #1 or browse the archive.
This is a letter written by Robert’s older brother, Harry (born on Aug 7, 1913).
In this letter Harry writes mainly about school and playing inside. Continue reading "Dear Mother #7 – Jan 27, 1927"
This is the latest installment in a series of letters written by my grandfather Robert (born on Sept. 17, 1916) to his mother. If you are new, you will want to start with #1 or browse the archive.
This is a letter written by Robert’s older brother, Harry (born on Aug 7, 1913).
In this letter Harry replies to his mother’s letter about the hospital she’s in, a delivery, and errands. Continue reading "Dear Mother #6 – Jan 25, 1927"
This is the latest installment in a series of letters written by my grandfather Robert (born on Sept. 17, 1916) to his mother. If you are new, you will want to start with #1 or browse the archive.
This is a letter written by Robert’s older brother, Harry (born on Aug 7, 1913).
In this letter Harry writes about Sunday School, a drive to the golf links, lambs, and the Boy Scouts Continue reading "Dear Mother #5 – Jan 23, 1927"
Check out this awesome custom stroller!
Spotted at Neatorama
This is the latest installment in a series of letters written by my grandfather Robert (born on Sept. 17, 1916) to his mother. If you are new, you will want to start with #1 or browse the archive.
This is a letter written by Robert’s older brother, Harry (born on Aug 7, 1913).
In this letter Harry writes about his unfinished project, playing cards and pool, candy, and a new radio. Continue reading "Dear Mother #4 – Jan 22, 1927"
This is the latest installment in a series of letters written by my grandfather Robert (born on Sept. 17, 1916) to his mother. If you are new, you will want to start with #1 or browse the archive.
In this letter Robert writes about changes at school, rain, and valentines. Continue reading "Dear Mother #3 – Jan 31, 1926"
You need to order one of these awesome shirts by Nathan Davis at Redbubble.com. I love this design, the coffee is so damn jaunty!
From their product description:
Tired? Life got you down? Is it a long day of paperwork ahead, or an endless night of cramming?
Well guess who’s here to WAKE YOU TH %$@# UP.
Ignore the uncontrollable shaking. That’s just the pure awesomeness that caffeine bestows upon the worthy! (If awesomeness persists, please consult a doctor.)
This is the latest installment in a series of letters written by my grandfather Robert (born on Sept. 17, 1916) to his mother. If you are new, you will want to start with #1 or browse the archive.
In this letter Robert writes about Van Dyke, a Christmas cactus, stamps, and daffodils. Continue reading "Dear Mother #2 – Jan 26, 1926"
My grandfather Robert pretending to be my great-grandfather.
As a child in Chico, California, my grandfather Robert (born on Sept. 27, 1916) wrote daily letters to his mother during her frequent and prolonged hospitalizations due to a long series of strokes, starting when she was rather young. The writing turned into a habit that he maintained into adulthood.
Luckily his mother kept every letter he sent, and we were able to find most of them. We have notes starting in 1926 and continuing until 1955. My mother and aunt tried to organize the letters into their proper order, but many letters were dated with only “Tuesday afternoon” or “Friday evening” with several mailed (or saved) in a single envelope.
It appears that some portions of Robert’s life are missing from these records, such as his college education, getting married, officer training in the Army-Air Force during WWII, and his professorship at California State University. Maybe they’re lost, but we’re hoping they turn up eventually. His older brother Harry (born on Aug 7, 1913) also wrote letters which will be included in this project. Most of the letters are from Robert, so Harry’s letters will be specially marked. The letters will be transcribed exactly as written, with bad spelling and grammar intact.
And now, with that being said, here’s the first letter:
Space Shuttle STS-1 QSL Card - Front
The first Space Shuttle (STS-1) launched on April 12th, 1981, carrying commander Bob Crippen and pilot John Young. This event caused extreme excitement in the 9-year-old me.
The Shuttle program captivated me from the start. I recently found my old scrapbooks filled with every newspaper article I could get my hands on. I even wrote to NASA and just naively asked for “any information about the Space Shuttle”, which later caused me to run around like a loon when the postman gave me a large packet from the Johnson Space Center filled with press kits, promotional photos, brochures, and other random stuff.
My dad is a amateur (ham) radio operator and the day after the launch he said “Let’s go see if we can we can contact them”. He fired up his radio and worked on finding W5RRR, the Johnson Space Center Amateur Radio Club. I remember him spending a lot of time trying to get through and logged, as every other ham radio operator on the planet was also trying to make contact. Eventually he was successful and sent off his QSL card. Continue reading "Space Shuttle STS-1 QSL Card"
This work by Brian Bennett is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
