Bootstrap time again. I came across this letter from 1961 when I was visiting my mom a couple weeks ago. I snuck it out in my knitting bag.

I think my mother had been snuffling, or in our family's euphemism, 'having a tough time' about something, and her mother kinda let her have it. That's right, "Amelia" put a little backbone into her christmas letter to Nancy.

I just love it  "You have elements of greatness within you...but...if something doesn't quite go as you want it to, you Stones... refuse to play ball."

and  "remember, fairy tales are only in books," and "Are we mice or MEN!"

And finally, "you have a world within you" -- WOW! Go grandma.

Well, she got my attention. Got my boots right back on. It reminded me of this song I wrote ages and ages ago and never recorded. I must have been having a 'tough time of it:'

"It's an endless conversation, your mother to you and you to me

on and on,

but i never asked you

I never asked you,

I never asked.

If I'm looking in the mirror, you're whispering there

your touch on me, I see it where

I never noticed,

I never noticed,

I never noticed, before

If you cheated me of memory

the wild shape of truth?  I'd choke it down, glittering

halfway to my heart,

halfway to my heart,

halfway and no more

It's an endless conversation, your mother to you and you to me

on and on,

but i never asked you

I never asked you,

I never wanted to know.

I think I'm missing a verse, but you get the gist of it. I most love Amelia's scrawled "mother" at the bottom matching her red christmas typewriter ribbon.