dear and good people,

i cannot begin to thank you enough for what became my very best birthday of all 60. the party, the gift, and all of you involved simply blew me away. penny post lewis is one sweet, if crafty, person for setting it in motion. i still can't get over it all.

i got myself to the palo alto restaurant ready to gas on at length with penny, per promise, and got to work as we were walking to what i thought was our table. it was, as you might know, a room, filled at the end with m-a people. i WAS surprised. and utterly delighted. wonderful decorations and flowers, all in m-a colors, plus an area of pictures of me as a very small child, including my birth announcement. where from? pat christian streck had tracked down my 95 year-old (very spry) uncle, who used to live in her complex, and got the pictures from him.

there were also cards, a wonderful gift, a menlo bear, made for the occasion, and a cake made by lynda nicolai andreatta. the gift? a mega-high tech rain jacket with "the m-a bear" embroidered on it, lower-case and all! i used it monday on a bike across the dumbarton bridge & connected bay paths & was charmed up to and through my very nostrils. i love it because it hits the spot/functions perfectly, but i mostly love it because it's from you. thank you very, very much.

what ensued was an evening of a whole lot of talking and laughing. we had ken kveseth-lancaster & terry slack get going on the horse story again, and ---as aforementioned---we'll look forward to the complete story in written form at a later date. this will include the jolly note that there was another fellow(s?) out in the big tree in front of A building just as the '58 boys were working on the locks. all pranksters moved toward communal heart failure upon discovery of each other.

again and again, thank you all for the most uplifting and flattering birthday i've ever had. you'd probably be embarrassed if you knew how much

i appreciate you.

peggy