Read at least the parts indicated in red tonight.
Sunday evening
9:00 o’clock
Dear, dear, Patricia:
Please phone me when you get in. I’ll still be up and doing school work. I’ll not hold you long but I’ll know that you are back safe & sound and everything is O.K. Then I’ll sleep better.
I could have taken you to S.F. this evening and would gladly have done so. I was at your Mom’s when you phoned but I didn’t know that you were without transportation till Doris had hung up and as she said you were on the run to get the bus it didn’t seem there was any chance to get you. You could have tried to get me and foiled, not realizing that I was at your Mom’s – but then, you might have decided by then that, under the circumstances, you’d rather go alone, as your Mom said. You are such an independent and courageous young woman. I admire you greatly for it but I am ready to do, or get, or chauffer for you anytime that I can. I believe you know that.
You’ll be tired when you get in so if you want to sleep as long as you can afford to in the morning, please do and have breakfast with me. I have everything ready and need only the “go ahead” signal. I’ll even play alarm clock for you if you’ll let me know tonight when you want to be called in the morning. I’ve had tow good night’s sleep in a row so I’ll have no trouble getting up in plenty of time. And maybe later in the week – say Friday morning we could breakfast together again.
I’m counting on dinner with you at the Interlude on Wednesday. Tomorrow (Monday evening) I’ll go to the ranch. Tuesday, as I told you, I’ll eat at Betty & Bob Walkers. Thursday is Bogosian’s(?) class and Friday evening I’m on the panel of the Open-end forum.
Any one of these – except the Walker date I’ll change if anything at all comes up that you’d want me to share in. Don’t forget that as soon as the Sangha Club has another meeting or work hour – if it comes anytime except when I have my two classes I’d like to work with them. I’ll cut Bogosian’s(?) class in the evening – I don’t really have to go to it – It’s just enjoyable and one of the things that needs support. – but you and what you want of me occupy the top places in my priority schedule – and I’d not let anything interfere[page 2] for the world – if I can help it. If Sangha Club work can come Tues. or Thurs. P.M. after 2:20 I’ll promise it and can schedule it regularly. And most any evening – so long as I can know a day or so in advance so I will not make cross commitments I’ll be glad to join the group for any service I can render.
When I phoned Doris today and wished her a happy birthday she asked if I couldn’t go out today instead of waiting till Tuesday as I had proposed. She wanted to talk about her problems with the social worker. That woman doesn’t sound any more sensible than a lot of the others. Of course I know that the real genius of working with others & helping is born into one – or God-given – as you choose, and is not learned but I’m really surprised at how many social workers have no understanding of what it means to recognized that every person is an individual case and that all cannot be poured into the same mold. Doris’s social worker seems to think that everyone should be reshaped – by pressure if need be – until they fit the one image of “normality” that the social worker has in his or her own mind. Which is nonsense.
Well, Doris wanted me to stay – and talk. She had fried a chicken (as she told me over the phone) and was preparing to give me brunch. We talked much of the afternoon – with incursions by Leon, Connie, and all form of the little brothers – even Nobie who is ill with something – possibly mumps.
Every time I tried to suggest it was time for me to come back – Doris gave every evidence she didn’t want me to leave and finally she brought out her collection of pictures of all of the children – from Patricia to Mort. Plainly she was enjoying the visit – and surely I was! It was real fun looking at them all. It was beginning to get dark when we got through and I came away with an invitation to see them again soon. I think I was able to get your Mom considerably relaxed from the tension developed around the Social Service worker. I’ll take her some more celery juice about Tuesday – and also an album to mount the photos in. She – quite incidentally – revealed that she could use me – saying that someday she’d get an album and mount the pictures. She gave me two (she has duplicates) and I came away feeling as if I’d just fallen heir to some of the treasures of India! Guess whose pictures they are! She said you wouldn’t mind me having them. I’ll treasure them as long as there is an existential me! I’ll listen for your call. – Love Carl
Dr. Carl Duncan and Patricia Whiting Collection (SJSU)
