Introduction
Allow me to introduce myself.
I'm Pete.
My name is A. Pedersen Wood, although to my family and certain old friends, I’m known as Pete. I’ll explain about this in a moment.
I have six brothers and sisters (not to mention a plethora of cousins, nieces and nephews); we are the products of a died-in-the-wool Midwest Republican married to a Massachusetts-born Democrat who actively campaigned for John F. Kennedy during the 1960 Presidential campaign. If nothing else, it made for lively conversation at the dinner table, particularly during election years.
In fact, on Election Day in November, 1960, as they were on their way to the voting poll (conveniently situated at our next-door neighbor’s garage) just prior to dinner, our father stopped, looked at our mother and said, “What really scares me is that, at the very last minute, you might actually vote for that guy.”Upon their return, Mother announced: “Children, your father lives in a dream world.” Which was hardly news to any of us. (He was, after all, a Republican.)
Politically, we are a diverse group. As each one of us reached the proper age, we promptly went out and signed up with whichever party seemed appropriate at the time. Loyalties have shifted over the years, as should be expected; but on any given Thanksgiving, you could expect to find at least four or five political parties represented at the dinner table. And that’s not including the turkey.
Our parents met while both were serving in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. They married in November, 1945. As both were still active in the Corps, it was a military wedding, which meant that our mother had to get written permission from her commanding officer in order to wear a wedding dress to her own wedding. From what I’ve heard, it would have taken a formidable officer to stand up to our maternal grandmother and her plans for the wedding of her only child. Mother’s dress was silk, naturally.
Their first child arrived in December of the following year. As the firstborn, they decided she should be named after her mother (M.) and father (F.). M. F. “Frankie”.
The next child came in July, 1948. The first boy in the family was named “Byron”, in part after our maternal grandfather, William Byron Noia, who was commonly called “Pud” (short for “Little Pudding”.)
During these years, our parents had made several moves from one state to another. By 1951, they were living in post-war housing in Richmond, California. Shortly after they had moved in, “Frankie” became ill. She was so sick that Mother decided to take her to the hospital in Richmond, hoping there would be at least a resident on duty.
There wasn’t one, but a nurse called a young doctor who had just returned from serving in Korea and was looking to set up a practice. He came to the hospital and, ultimately, pulled “Frankie” through a case of viral pneumonia. Our parents decided then that, not only had they found a family doctor, but that the next kid to come rolling off the assembly line, regardless of gender, would be named for Dr. Lars A. Pedersen.
I have the honor of being that child. I also have the distinction of being the only one in our family who is named for just one person, instead of two or more. Dr. Pedersen’s patients frequently called him, Pete. And as he was “Big Pete”, I became “little Petey”. I stayed “Petey” until I reached my first quarter-century mark. After that “Petey” seemed a little too cutesy, and I dropped the “Y” and became just plain Pete.
After I was born, two more boys came in relatively quick succession (it was the ‘50’s; everyone was doing it). “Richard” was named for a family friend and Dad’s other brother. Next in line was “Marshall”.
For a while, it looked like that would be it for our own little contribution to the Baby Boom. But shortly after “Marshall” entered kindergarten, Mother had another baby girl. (The rumor going around the neighborhood was that three months of relative quiet, with all the kids in school, was all she could take.)
This one was name for her two grandmothers, “Jeannie”
With almost a five-year gap between “Jeannie” and her older siblings, our parents decided that one more child was in order. “Alice”, named for two of Mother’s aunts, came along about a month and a half after “Jeannie’s” first birthday. For years, probably until they started high school, “the two little girls” were a unit, “Jeannie”-and-“Alice”. They did just about everything together.
When they got into fights, “Alice” would state: “You were a mistake.” To which “Jeannie” would shoot back, “You were only born to keep me company.”
And that completes our happy, little brood. All from different parts of the gene pool. A woman once told our mother that she had somehow managed to raise seven “only children”. And “Byron” paid Dad the compliment of saying, “You raised a fine bunch of scrappers.”
We were all, by the way, baptized into the Roman Catholic Church and raised Irish Catholic, to varying degrees of success. Like politics, our views on religion tend to be all over the map.
Now, about these letters…
In the summer of 1988, “Alice” married her high school sweetheart, “Kelly”. She wore her mother’s wedding dress, as did “Frankie” when she got married some years earlier. Grandma got her money’s worth out of that dress.
A few months after “Alice’s” wedding, some of us received carbon copies of a letter which “Alice” and “Kelly” had written to “Kelly’s” family. It turned out that “Kelly’s” family, who are almost all school teachers of one sort or another, had a tradition of writing to each other about once a week. Some of this may have come out of “Kelly’s” time working as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa. (He was a mathematician, so they sent him to teach French.) At that time, he was writing to let his folks know he was all right.
At any rate, “Alice” and “Kelly’s” first letter inspired “Frankie”, who was living with her family in San Salvador at the time, to write a letter in turn. Then Mother wrote a letter and, in the meantime, another letter arrived from “Alice” and “Kelly”.
This started me thinking, “Well, heck, I could do this.” I didn’t have a typewriter, but I had a computer on my desk at work. I didn’t know much how to use it (yet), but knew enough to get to the mainframe. And, once on the mainframe, I could use VM Xedit (an early form of word processing) to type and print a letter, during my lunch break.
So I wrote the first letter. And then another. And then another. And so on…
Now for a few rules…
In the original letters, I would mention people with whom I was working at the time. To protect the privacy of these people, I have replaced their real names with pseudo-names, selected at random from the phone directory. These pseudo-names appear in quotes. So if you see a name like “Ashley”, you know that wasn’t his or her real name.
As for the company for which I was working then, it’s just one of a dozen or more large corporations doing business in the greater San Francisco Bay Area. Again, in the original letters, I called the company by name, but here it’s just “The Company”. I also changed a few geographical locations to further muddy the waters.
From time to time, where I judged a little more explanation was in order, I’ve added some additional text in brackets. Other than that, the stage is set. The year is 1988. “Alice” and “Kelly” have written. “Frankie” has written. Mother has written (on her trusty old Underwood). And now, it’s my turn…
The first Letter...