Steve

Dear Sister

Did you have a big Labor Day? We had to go up to Lampassas for Lester's peoples reunion. They have it in this tacky old picnic park that has a mineral swimmin pool, fed from a natural mineral spring. Have you ever been in a mineral spring swimmin pool? Girl, it's horrible. The water's all milky white and smells like rotten eggs. I won't go near it.

Harla and Darla tried it for a while and said it liked to made them urp up their lunch. Their hair stunk all the way home and that water rotted the elastic out of their brand new swimsuits.

The reunion wasn't too bad. I guess we played "Chicken Foot" and "42" with some of the young'uns and less feeble of the family that are able to count and shuffle dominoes.

Nobody in Lester's family can cook worth a damn. But, they are all fat as pigs anyway. What sense does that make?

I learned a long time ago to just eat the store bought and pre-packaged food at their gatherings. Lester's cousin, A.P., was supposed to supply the brisket and everybody else was to bring a covered dish to accompany the meal. The Fontenots brought potato salad all the way from Lake Charles,evidently with no ice or cooler. It must of been spoiled before they even hit the Texas border. Everybody who had any, had really intense intestinal cramps for most of the afternoon and a good case of the diarrhea by nightfall.

Everybody took on, over Dora Mabel's cake that she brought. It tasted like a cheap yellow cake mix out of a box to me and she cooked it 'til it was dry and tough, and iced it with Crisco and a little sugar Her stove must not be level because her cake was lop-sided.

It was a long drive back, but I was glad to get away from them. Harla and Darla seem so much more attractive, intelligent and well-behaved compared to all the other kids. I've always thought there was a lot of what we used to call "cousins-in-law" in Lester's Family.

We got stuck behind a truck that was going to an animal rendering factory, and there was a horrible stench, and somethin like grease got all over the front of the car, and the windshield. Lester turned on the windshield wipers and blurred the windshield up so bad, we had to pull over at a rest stop.

Then the girls hit the vending machine and got all hopped up on sugar from peanut patties and Jr. Mints.

We rolled into the driveway about 2 A.M. in the morning and found out that Harla had left the bathroom sink runnin the whole time we were gone. The bathroom linoleum was buckling up and the good pink carpet was soaked all down the hall and into the dining room. I was too tired to spank her good, so I just whacked her across the back of her legs with the radio aerial off the old Chevy. Those girls test my patience daily.

I never regret secretly havin hadmy tubes tied while Lester was on that two week fishin trip,just six months after the twins came. Every time that he says that he wants to try for a boy, I just hold on to the headboard and hum a Tom Jones tune in my head 'til he rolls off of me. I know he doesn't realize there is never gonna be a Lester John Wayne Poteet Jr. He probably thinks he's shootin blanks. Don't you tell him any different either.

I better go. It looks like form the window that the trampoline ripped, and Harla, no it's Darla is stuck upside down in the tear with her feat stickin' out.

Be good and remember we love you, anyway