Writing Letters, Five Year Journals and Mexico

March 11, 2019

Dear Noah and Dylan:

     I am looking forward to getting a letter from each of you with the personalized stationery I got you both for Christmas. You can use the Dear Abby packet on How to Write a Letter writing as a guide if you are having a hard time, but i don't think either of you need it! It's just a matter of sitting down and writing what you are thinking!
     You both wrote your thoughts easily in the five year personalized journals I gave you last night, your "Daylight Savings Time" gifts. They were supposed to be for New Years but I forgot I had them when you were here last, and then i figured they'd be for Valentine's Day but I don't think we saw you in February.  As it turned out, yesterday was  Daylight Savings Time. In your first entry you wrote about how your aunt is losing it because she told you to write the year 2016 in the little box. Whoops. It's not 2016! One would think if I were to make a mistake like 2018, just the year before, but 3 years earlier is not as understandable.🙉 And then you teased me because i also gave you some "recycled items" that I thought you would like, hand warmer packets and a skull necklace. I hate to throw anything out that I don't need or want, but I thought you both might like them. Otherwise, they were going in a box for the thrift store in Salisbury.  It lead to a good discussion about how both me and your dad have furnished our houses with things found on the street, left out for trash. I just picked up a new bureau on Broad St to replace the busted pink one i had on the front porch. One man's trash is another man's treasure. And I didn't make up that saying! :-) In fact, your dad has even picked up some items I left on the street for anyone interested. Lately, nobody is taking anything we leave out because people are downsizing their possessions, living more simply without a lot of clutter. That will probably never happen on Hale St OR Hazel St!! LOL!
     You guys were pretty tired last night but that didn't stop Dylan from beating me and your dad in a game of 45's. Noah got a second wind after his nap and he and Uncle Joe watched some super hero movie with The Hulk and other interesting looking characters. Apparently, you had a brutal basketball game before you came over, unfairly matched against an 8th grade team. 5th graders vs. 8th graders! For dinner we had teriyaki chicken stir fry with peppers, rice, green beans mixed with corn and black beans and also some American Chop Suey we bought at the Newbury Butchery. Your dad brought pecan pie and bread pudding for dessert but we also had two flavors of Ben and Jerry's ice cream here. We ate in our Ben and Jerry's bowls we bought on our trip to the factory in Stowe, Vermont, remember that?
     Surprisingly, there was very little farting going on last night although your aunt managed a couple of nice belches. As Auntie Susan would comment, "Every inch the lady!" We laughed a lot, as always, mostly making fun of your dad being rejected by a female dolphin at Discovery Cove or Sea World. He's plundered the pickings of human females around the world, unsuccessfully, and now is moving on to the animal kingdom.
    I am writing this in my journal that I started the day before you were born, an ongoing letter to you describing many of our great days spent together. You will get a copy of it when you are eighteen. It will be a great way to look back some day when you too are older, like me, and relive your early years! I still write in my own journal. I have filled up about 20 notebooks! I think i started in 3rd grade and then my mom bought me a five year journal like yours when I was in the 5th grade.  I used my journal that I kept when I was sixteen years old living in Mexico  to help me write my first book Letters From Apizaco.  Have you read it yet? Would you like to? Let me know and I will give you a copy! You will see what kind of trouble I got myself into there, trying to speak Spanish and fit in at school with all Mexican kids that did not speak any English, maybe just a few sentences like "Howare you?" or "What Ees your name?"
     Anyway,  I was so bored in school and i would write letters to my Grandma and Grandpa Kudym, your Uncle Don, your dad and my friends when the teachers were lecturing.  I couldn't understand hardly anything except for math. (and English!) The Mexican kids used to ask me to do their English homework for them and teach them swear words in English. The teachers didn't like me because i didn't pay attention. I tried to but it was too hard to understand. I had only been learning Spanish for three years. I sure learned a lot more Spanish there! But one teacher kicked me under the desk to try to get me to sit up and listen! And he was a priest, teaching at a Catholic School! (That's one of the reasons I have no interest in going to church anymore.) Some people there are full of hate towards Americans, just as many Americans are full of hate towards Mexicans and think building a wall to keep us separate is a good idea. It's a HORRIBLE idea! MOST Mexicans are very nice and there are just as many "Bad Hombres" here as there are there, as Trump calls them. The Big Bad Hombre IS Trump.  I hope you will look back some day to see what a crazy time this has been, the country divided in two over all the racism he supports. He is mentally ill and ONLY wants to be rich and famous, with the people that like him worshipping him at his rallies. He is not interested in making America great. He is interested in making HIMSELF great, but he will be remembered in the same light as Nixon, or worse, Hitler. He has caused much harm to the people of Mexico that have come here with their children and put into camps, separating the kids from their parents, many whom are still separated and unable to find each other because they have been sent far away. His government didn't think it was necessary to keep track of who went where so they could reunite because they were "only Mexicans" (or Guatemalans, or other Central Americans)
He has destroyed the lives of so many families!
     Well, I'm signing off for now and printing this journal entry to send to you in an envelope. I love you, I'm proud of you and I look forward to the next time we get together, as always!

Muchisimo amor,
Auntie Kim