Photo: Linda Jones with a ribbon for dressage and her father, Chuck Jones, circa 1949. 

Chuck Jones was a prolific letter writer and he kept a carbon copy of every one he wrote. Here’s one from 1954 when Linda was at boarding school in Arizona:

Thirsday (Thirstdate) uh…yeh.
1954

Post # 55

Dearest Linda
How can I have spring fever when it isn’t even Autumn?  I’m s lonesome as a penguin in a sandstorm; I’m as stormy as a sanguine in a pen.  Don’t be lazy you little beast, look up sanguine in the dictionary.  However, I’ll give you a clue: the butler is the up-stairs maid’s lover, but the first foot-man was aware that the Bolivian Embassy Café had been rifled by a man named Winchester who was exactly 76 years old.

The street in front of the studio is being severely scarred by a number of unlikely looking machines, one of which is approximately two hundred and seven feet, ten inches long and chews a hole in the street nine feet wide by twenty feet deep.  This is followed by a clamshell digger to pick up clamshells left at lunch by the workers.  Then a largish crane shambles up and sloppily lowers an eight by thirty foot pipe into the hole where it is welded together by men known in the trade as “Welders”.  This pie will extend from the Colorado River to San Pedro…No, no, now wait…it must be this damn diet, confections of all sorts seem to sneak into my conversations.  New start:  This pipe will eventually extend and carry water from the Colorado River to San Pedro, where I presume it will be dumped into the Pacific Ocean.  What won’t science think of next?

Did you hear of the captain who found a beautiful stowaway in Number 2 hold and took her to his cabin and showed her number 3 hold?

Then there was the man who made two crossings of the Atlantic without taken a bath…the dirty double-crosser.

Had a pleasant visit with Dr. Mumler yesterday who was pleased to announce that my virus was still lurking in my veins and arteries.  My blood sedimentation rate is up you’ll be pleased to know, rather like a small-scale Bologna Creek I gather, pleasantly sludgy and rife with eel-grass.  He seemed quite pleased, said he’d never seen this particular virus flourish in a human body, said it was hard enough to keep it going in the laboratory with the help of yogurt cultures.  He patted me gently on the shoulder like a Leyden flask and told me not to worry, that the stuff was not contagious.  He said to continue on with the old yeast only to force it when I felt low.  I said I always felt low about something, what about that?  He said only when I felt low physically.  I asked him when I felt who low physically?  He tapped me gently on the bridge of the nose with his reflex hammer and shot me out into the corridor where I sat quietly reading a poster for Forest Lawn Cemetery until Dottie found me and carried me sobbing to the car.

If any of the above seems to indicate that I am trying to be whimsical when really sick, quite the opposite is true.  I am getting sick trying to be whimsical.  The truth of the matter is that I am in magnificent health, strong as Camembert, erect as wet Kleenex, a boon to my companions, a delight to my family and a breeding place for a small innocuous virus name of sam.  He is so innocuous that he can’t even carry a capital letter on his name.  Nevertheless he is mine.
As Dottie may have mentioned, we are going to Laramie Oct. 29 and will return through Albuquerque to Phoenix where we will spend the week of October 1…pardon..November 1st to 7th.  We will either see you in Phoenix or at the ranch or preferably both depending on how available the Merkley car is.

Until later I remain your devoted papa.  Je vous adore…