Dear Zeke

Dear Zeke,

Thanks for your letter! I hope you’re having an excellent summer, and really enjoying your vacation time.

Please tell me about Camp Curtis. How long did you spend there? What did you do? Was it fun?

I never really went to camp when I was young. Back then, there weren’t as many camps for kids; but my Mom and Grandma did like to send me to Vacation Bible School. For Bible School, you would go during the day, every day, for about a week, learning about things from the Bible and doing crafts. To be honest, I think it was mainly to get kids out of the house during the day so the adults could get a break for a while, but that’s okay — moms need a rest sometimes, too!

I’m glad to hear you are still learning ukulele. I’d love to hear you play some time! Maybe you could ask Mom to do a video of you and send it to me. I have been trying to learn ukulele, too, though I never seem to have enough time to spend on it. I actually have two ukuleles, a concert uke with regular (re-entrant) tuning, and a tenor uke — which you can see in the photo below — with low-g tuning. I bought the tenor uke about six or seven years ago in Hawaii, but I’ve only really started to try to play it in the last year or so. I’ve been learning online from a teacher named Marco Cirillo. You can see some of his videos at https://www.youtube.com/@MarcoCirilloUkulele

Here I am this afternoon practicing the ukulele. Can you tell what chord I’m playing?

I’ve been very busy so far this summer: working on the yard, trying to learn to speak French better, doing lots of reading and a bit of writing. Also, Grandma Carol and I joined a gym a few weeks ago, and we go to work out on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Unfortunately, I hurt my back pretty hard last week, so I have had to be a lot more careful since then when doing physical stuff. It’s getting better, though.

Have a great July, and let me know what kinds of things you’d like for your birthday!

Love,

Pop-pop