After I open this letter, what caught my attention right away is the word Christmas 1968. But the letter was dated May 5, 1969.
May 5th has a strong feeling for me because my youngest was born on that month and date, and it is also the celebration of Cinco De Mayo. I wonder if Cinco de Mayo was already celebrated back in Rexford’s era.
I was curious those months gap before the date of the letter is something is brewing around, and here are what I found out.
Jan 14-16: Soviet Soyuz 4 and 5 docked in orbit, the first crewed spacecraft docking with crew transfer between vehicles, the Cold War space race kept running while Foxboro’s letter sat unwritten.
March 1969: Apollo 9 tested the lunar module for the first time in Earth orbit.
April 1969: at Houston, an engineer showed colleagues a small model with “straight, stubby wings and a shark-like nose,” the first pitch for what became the Space Shuttle, decades before it flew.
The second paragraph that is interesting was when he said “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth…” I do not know those three dots means to him. This tells me he was a man of God.
All of a sudden, something stopped me from writing, and I remembered a lovely lady that carry a good vibe energy, and her name is Bristol. Rexford was her great grand Uncle. I been in contact with her, and she generously been sharing info about her family’s generation, as well pictures.
I saved them all on my iPad, and I started browsing the images, and this one in particular truly was connected to the comment I said Rexford was a man of God.
In this picture he was sitting on a step of a house, and the writing said “Happy and cheerful folks are the Rex Bristols- even before dinner and this, too, in spite of the fact that Rexford has just been through a difficult session of church history, that Chic has just listened to an hour sermon on prayer, and that Besty has had to go to school on the Seventh Day.”
This was a validation. It supported what I already noticed in the letter.
Rexford’s mind is curious, and the way he write intrigue me deeply. I know people that collect stamps, but that was it. But with him he went beyond that, because pairing it with the First Day of Issue stamp is appealing to me.
Weird, as instead of adding more, something in my head came forward in terms of ideas of how I operate things, which almost like I am representing him how his mind works in terms of ideas and creativities. For example, I collect Advertising Print such as the brand Monet and Napier jewelry.
I went beyond just having the Ads because I went after the jewelry that the models wore on the Advertisement. Just like my vintage 50 States postcards, I collect their matching magnets too.
And something that made sense to me how he paired his letter and wrote a story about it with its matching stamp and envelope.
Rexford added more value to his letter and truly is about doing one step ahead.
Out of nowhere, I put myself into his shoes, and that is where I found the missing piece. Rexford’s birthday was June 25th, mine is June 26th, one day apart. Cancer zodiac sign wear their emotion on their sleeve, and I think that’s why his writing reaches me the way it does.
When you do something with care, passion follows, and with passion comes gratitude and appreciation.
When I accomplish something that produces that good feeling, my heart feels the joy and proudness, and most times that emotion wraps around me like a hug.
I love to believe he carried that as well like I do.
