(NOW AT San Diego MARINE CORPS RECRUIT TRAINING.)

Dear Ma and Pa,

I am well. Hope you are. Tell Brother Walt and Brother Elmer the Marine Corps beats working for old man Minch by a mile. Tell them to join up quick before all of the places are filled.

I was restless at first because you got to stay in bed till nearly 6 a.m. but I am getting so I like to sleep late. Tell Walt and Elmer all you do before breakfast is smooth your cot, and shine some things. No hogs to slop, feed to pitch, mash to mix, wood to split, fire to lay. Practically nothing.

Men got to shave but it is not so bad, there's warm water. Breakfast is strong on trimmings like fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, etc., but kind of weak on chops, potatoes, ham, steak, fried eggplant, pie and other regular food, but tell Walt and Elmer you can always sit by the two city boys that live on coffee. Their food plus yours holds you til noon when you get fed again. It's no wonder these city boys can't walk much.

We go on "route marches," which the platoon Sergeant says are long walks to harden us. If he thinks so, it's not my place to tell him different. A "route march" is about as far as to our mailbox at home. Then the city guys get sore feet and we all ride back in trucks.

The country is nice but awful flat. The Sergeant is like a school teacher. He nags a lot. The Captain is like the school board. Majors and Colonels just ride around and frown. They don't bother you none.

This next will kill Walt and Elmer with laughing. I keep getting medals for shooting, I don't know why. The bulls-eye is near as big as a chipmunk head and don't move, and it ain't shooting at you like the Higgett boys at home. All you got to do is lie there all comfortable and hit it. You don't even load your own cartridges. They come in boxes.

Then we have what they call hand-to-hand combat training. You get to wrestle with them city boys. I have to be real careful though, they break real easy. It ain't like fighting with that ole bull at home. I'm about the best they got in this place except for that Tug Jordan from over in Silver Lake . I only beat him once. He joined up the same time as me, but I'm only 5'6" and 130 pounds and he's 6'8" and near 300 pounds dry.

Be sure to tell Walt and Elmer to hurry and join before other fellers get onto this setup and come stampeding in.



Your loving daughter,

Lisa

You know you are getting old when the big excitement in your day is watching squirrels attempt to scale up a pole and quickly clear out any bird seed left on the feeder.

Dave and I decided we may enjoy sitting on the porch at our river house and watching birds so we put up a metal pole (three inch in diameter and about six feet tall) with a feeder on the top. An elderly man in Walmart had told me that squirrels could not climb metal poles and I took him at his word. After careful selection of the perfect spot, we constructed our bird feeder and placed it in the yard. It wasn’t up an hour until the squirrels arrived in mass. Minutes later, up the pole went the squirrels like it was a walk in the park.

Dave loves a good challenge and he was determined to keep the squirrels off the bird feeder. He came home from work the next day with a large piece of PVC pipe, five inches in diameter. His theory was that if the pipe where bigger, the squirrels couldn’t get their legs around the pipe to climb it. So he put the PVC pipe over the metal pole. It didn’t take but a couple hours for the squirrels to disprove his theory. Next plan was to make the pole slick so Dave broke out his car wax. After a couple good coats of wax, Dave assured me that the squirrels could not get up the pole now. Wrong, the wax didn’t seem to affect their climbing ability at all. We came to the conclusion that they must have sticky pads on their little feet!

I decided the car wax wasn’t slick enough so I arrived on the scene with a jar of petroleum jelly and I really lubed up the pole. I have to admit that watching the squirrels after that was very entertaining. They would assess the situation, get back and take a running leap and make it about half way up the pole before sliding back down. However, that only worked for a few hours and next thing I knew, one made it to the top.

Now Dave was on a mission! He would not be outwitted by squirrels. He came home with another section of metal pole and another section of PVC pipe. He extended the feeder to about 10 feet high. This time we were sure those pesky little squirrels couldn’t climb the pole. We watched anxiously and started feeling confident that we had finally solved the problem when days went by without a squirrel making it to the top! And then…….yesterday I looked out and there sat a squirrel on top of the feeder consuming the bird seed at lightning speed!

Now don’t get me wrong, we realize that squirrels have to eat too. We have put up squirrel feeders and put out corn for the squirrels. Our problem with the squirrels is that they are very destructive. They have chewed up several of our feeders. They destroy all the flowers and hanging baskets I have around and on the deck. They dig up my plants and eat my tomatoes. They even try to take up homestead on our porch and on our boat!

Anyone have an idea of a plan to keep them off the bird feeder? Suggestions are welcome. At this point, we are willing to try anything!