Robert writes home #65 31 Mar 1996 Essay: Barnyard friends

31 Mar 1996

Dear Mother,

                Janet is still in Idaho. I go get her tomorrow in San Jose.

                I’m having some tough allergy symptoms. I think I’m allergic to our fruitless mulberry tree’s cat-tails. I had another tough time a month ago when the alder trees had their cat-tails (those pollen laded things that hang on them in the spring, they’re actually blooms). I think I’m going to do some severe pruning next year, so there will just be new foliage and no blooms.

                Stuart Schofield (my associate in dentistry) and his sister, Kathy, who lives in Long Beach arranged a priest Laurel activity for this week-end. She is the Laurel advisor in Long Beach and he is the YM pres in Los Banos. Kathy and a couple of mothers drove the girls from Long Beach up here for the weekend. They had three activities together with LB priests. In addition the girls went shopping in San Francisco yesterday morning. Charlie thought it was a pretty good idea and had a good time. They had some cute girls. I don’t know what the LB girls thought of the idea. They weren’t invited to the get togethers.

                Stuart has really been a good YM pres.

                Saturday the YM boys had a tri-tip barbeque in the Walmart parking lot. It was an effort to raise money for their high adventure for next summer…a white water raft trip down the American river. It happens 12-15 of Aug. I don’t know if Charlie will be able to work that in. We have a lot of stuff happening the first two weeks of August.

                Charlie is still undefeated in tennis.

                Sam spends a lot of time writing. He seems to like school pretty well. He got three A’s, one B and three C’s. We were really happy about that.

                Magdalene, I met a women from Mount Pleasant at Charlie's tennis match the other day. Her name was Irma Shelly. She was the sister-in-law of the mother of Charlie’s opponent. She said she knew you. She said some nice things about you that I can't remember the details of. She remembered Mom and Pop when they lived in Mt. Pleasant. We enjoy your letters.

Love,

Robert, Charlie and Sam

PS I'm enclosing a little essay:

In a barnyard community I find that I can enter a relationship with another being at a wide variety of intelligence levels. Chickens are pretty shallow thinkers. As a matter of fact they are an interesting study on what life would be like if we just followed our natural urges and didn’t reason or contemplate outcomes. Their main interest in people is source of food or life threat.

                Dogs, on the other hand, feel affection and can be taught things and yet they are not difficult to be friends with. They aren’t critical like people. They give a lot of affectionate response and are easy to be with.

                Horses tolerate you and usually are not aggressive and they are too stupid to realize that they are tougher than you. They can be bluffed into thinking that they have to mind you and thus become power extensions of your existence. I remember what a thrill it was to feel my own power extended by the additional strength of my horse as I would gallop across the field or pull a cart. I all had to do was to be able to bluff him into thinking he had to obey me. In response I felt gratitude and warmth towards him. I think he didn’t feel much towards me. He just accepted me as an unavoidable burden in his life.

                 My peacock is smarter than the chickens. He seems to enjoy my companionship and cruises along a little ways out from me when I walk out on the farm. He strut for me and seems to enjoy; my attention.

                Baby orphan (bummer) lambs, calves and goats are a different experience. They need you as their mother and follow you around. That dependence is really pleasant. It makes you feel all warm and important in their lives. I once knew a nice old women who had a sheep who had quadruplets but only milk for two. So the woman had to feed the other two on a bottle with a nipple. She was telling me how she held the lambs in her arms and rocked them in her rocking chair while she fed them. That’s tender.

                Sometimes I get a little stressed after dealing with people long hours every day. I like them, but you have to keep up all the time and be careful not to say things that they will take the wrong way. It’s then that I really appreciate being able to have a relationship with someone who won’t get insulted if you say the wrong thing…like my dog, sheep, horse or peacock. I can just pick the level that I want to socially interact at. I can talk all I want without them getting their feelings hurt.