Tomorrow P.M . I’m hearing Buckminster Fuller! All’s clear. But be sure to let me know when to call for you on Wed. - 6:00, 6:30, 7:00, etc.
Dearest Patricia:
I get more and more excited as Wednesday draws near! Tonight, at dinner at Original Joe’s, I kept thinking of you as I read the book by Harrison Salisbury “The Shook-Up Generation” - not because you belong to it but, because, miraculously you escaped belonging to it. I hope you have time to read this book before long. In it I am sure you will recognize many indications of the disturbed world in which you spent much of your childhood and youth but through which you passed unscathed, thanks to the uninhibited love and affection showered upon you, as it has been on all your brothers and sisters, but your remarkable mother. In spite of the “scars” that she acquired, while nourishing all of you on love and [?] the ideals of conduct personality and behavior that she has made to be important in the thinking of all of your, and in spite of the confusion through which she has passed, she has remained a beautiful person and an impressive one. The more I see of her, the higher she rises in my esteem!
Where else could one find a family as wholly beautiful as all of you were when the photograph was taken of you at my retirement dinner last May 16? I know no other such family, though I know a number of admirable families. The only one missing at my dinner, of course, was Kay. And I am sure that, were your mother not up against some pretty stiff competition during a critical period of Kay’s bringing up, she would fit in with all the rest of you. even so, I suspect she3 has not diverged a great deal from the basic pattern. Did you ever see a more beautiful and more rewarding picture than the lot of you taken at that dinner. Of all the pictures taken by Art Smith that evening, that of your family was the one I most wanted to turn out well - and it lives up to all my hopes and expectations. I’ll have an extra copy made for you and also one for your Aunt and Uncle Teddy and Norman at Ventura. Also one for Benno. I think he’ll like one but, you know, as I told your mother, he has put on so much weight since May 16 that I could hardly [page 2] believe it was he sitting alongside you, he still had the thin face that he had when he was in my class the autumn you met him and when I was out of school due to illness for a while.
Well, as I read my book “The Shook-Up Generation” about what, among other things, produces the youthful trouble makers in our big cities - with New York as the prime source, I kept thinking of the open, directness of personality and sense of fundamental security that shows in the faces of all of you, so when I was ushered to a table after the wait that almost always occurs at Original Joe’s, I thought up a toast to you - the first one now in quite a while. I thought how you had passed through all the circumstances that would have (and does) wrecked so many young persons who do not have the love and guidance that you had and in which your mother never failed you. I thought of the part of Chicago where you lived as one thinks of a piece of ground where rich soil is spread among a lot of rocks but out of which - well rooted grows a lovely flower. And so, since you are the flower, the words of my toast came to me: “To you, flower of the wildwood, rising strong and sturdy from the stony ground - you are the very stuff of life triumphant!” I know no one else at all like you. is it any wonder that I have fallen so in love with you as a personality, that I draw so much of inspiration from you, and that I miss you when days pass without my seeing you? it’s no wonder to me - you are the wonder - over and over, day after day.
Did I tell you that Bess Frank sent me 5 tickets for the mandolin concert and that it is scheduled for March 26? I hope the date is clear for you, but we’ll have to find three other persons. If Herb goes - as I presume he still plans to do - only two more will be needed. Perhaps you know a couple of music majors (or others) who would be interested. We can discuss the matter, if anything further is neded, when we have dinner on Wednesday.
I hope your therapy was as beneficial as it should have been today - but I would still like to see you have the benefits of an osteopathic treatment in addition. For years, I’ve combined osteopathic treatment (with much benefit) with medical treatment and with all the doctors concerned fully informed. Well, my space is up so, as always -- love - Carl.
Dr. Carl Duncan and Patricia Whiting Collection (SJSU)
