This lovely card and message arrived the other day. Well said.  Jean was pleased. He said, "That was nice of him."

What Do You Think?

      Ad on the back of an old National Geographic of Jean's. Haha. Couldn't resist posting it.

Happy Birthday

  It was a good birthday for Jean yesterday.  Thank you for the calls and cards and kind thoughts and  wishes.
 He was quite alert in the morning, and was able to speak on the phone a little bit. He understood that  it was his  birthday. Friend Roy came by in the afternoon and sang a couple of songs for him. Julee  and June sent the beautiful tulips.
        Thank you, all!

... .KNOWING THAT BEING COOL RUNS IN THE FAMILY

from the receptionist at the chiropractor's office where Jean used to go

Easter Weekend

We had a very nice Easter weekend. Blossoms are out on all the trees. Sunday was sunny.
Peter and Betty are on one of their cross-country trips, and spent the weekend with us. It was so great to have them here.
Another special thing is that Jean was more alert while they were here than he generally is.
On Saturday, he did not know who Pete was.
Yesterday and today, he knew and recognized Pete and spoke with him a little bit. This morning, he did not know who John was, but he looked at Peter, and immediately said his name.
As he was eating, he suddenly started to speak, very softly.
First he said, "I was a little boy once." "I got into trouble a lot." He even smiled.
Who told you that you were in trouble?
"My momma."
How did you feel about it?
"That's how I learned to run."
What did your grandma do?
"She ran fast too." "That was long ago."

Father and his two older sons, on Monday morning, March 28th.

Scenes from our week

barbecued spareribs, mashed potatoes, baked yam with butter and maple syrup, everything pureed

Hairdresser Pat came to cut his hair. Sorry about the hot chocolate on his face. Sometimes he does not want us to wipe his face, and we have to wait.

Time to go back to bed.

Orange Trees and Sunshine

John and I are enjoying listening to some of the detailed interviews Peter conducted with both his parents in the early 1990s about their lives. The interviews are wonderful. Thank you, Pete, for taking the time and effort to do this.

Jean sounds so youthful, although he was close to eighty at the time.

His accounts of his early years in southern California - the orange groves, the beautiful small towns - bring to mind some of the fun, black and white Hollywood movies ("pictures") of the 1930s, and Clark Gable himself, whose ranch was just three miles down the road from them when they lived in the San Fernando Valley. (And who, according to Delpha, looked like Jean.)

Chemistry Lab

I found another reminiscence of Jean's from a couple of years ago.
This one is about his chemistry class in high school.

"I had a good time in chemistry lab."
"I was in charge of the supplies, and had to get out the boxes for the projects every day."
"We made gun cotton, and black powder. That was easy. The gun cotton was made by putting the cotton in nitric acid, to convert the cotton to an explosive."

"We also made chocolate cake. But not on the same day."

Jean Charles, second from left, in chemistry lab at Alhambra High School