Email from Mary Canizzaro

Everyone-It is just great!

Have you all read the blog lately? Marj and Tom, I know you will get a kick out of it. Thank you, Richard, for being so persistent for us. I love reading the letters -- I can not imagine Dad that way -- I don't have a lot of memory of him young, with a young man's personality. He was definitely in love with Mom. And Richard, I love your additions and memories of the older car and Aunt Maidie and Uncle Horace.

Marj and Tom, I'm sure that you have some additional memories of those things also. I seem to have a very vague memory of Aunt Maidie and Uncle Horace and maybe of the hardware store -- Is it possible that my big brown christmas teddy bear came from the hardware store? I remember wanting a big teddy bear very much for one Christmas. On the day before Christmas, we, as a family, visited a store on Main Street, near where you described the hardware store to be. I saw Teddy Bears in there and Dad left carrying aVERY BIG package tightly wrapped. The next morning there was that Teddy Bear under the Christmas tree. (Marj now has that teddy bear in her bear collection -- I loved him very much.) Anyway, that was one of my first inclinations that there was not really a Santa Claus.

Hope everyone is doing well. It was wonderful to see you all when Richard and Anita were. Eini and Jim, we missed you very much and hope to see you next time. Hopefully it will not be too long.

Love,
Mary

The Teddy Bear I remember well. Dad was like that sometimes, he would see you liked something and the next day it would appear. I remember going to the Busy Corner Drug store with Dad and Tom and seeing these neat pistols. They were made of tin you pulled the trigger and sparks would come out of the barrel. They were great guns. We always loved guns of all types. Something about boys and guns. It was a few days before Christmas and on Christmas day there were two of these guns.

RLR