3909 Round Top Drive

Honolulu, Hawaii

Wednesday, September 26, 1956

Dearest Mom

We are no longer at Portlock, having left that big house behind with a sigh of relief. It was a beautiful location, but the small-community social atmosphere and the inefficient house were wearing.

Right now we are living in a little rented house only one removed from the lot where our new one is a-building. The rented house is small, only one bathroom, a kitchen, livingroom, three bedrooms, and a front porch which is serving as the master bedroom at the moment. So, it's crowded. Our new house is somewhat behind schedule, being at the stage of finishing the floor joists. It has taken over 2½ months to get the masonry along to its stage of being almost finished. At any rate, it looks like our wish to be in for a big Christmas party might mot be realized, so we must postpone it for a year. By that time all the planting will be in good shape, and everything functioning well.

We were tickled pink at the news of your San Simeon ranch. It seems to me that you have been talking of such a thing ever since I can remember, so it is doubly wonderful that it has finally come to pass. Now you can cook on an all-wood-fired stove, as I seem to recall you idealized. That country it beautiful, although a bit dry. We thought pretty seriously of buying a ranch along the skyline drive about at the level of Palo Alto a couple of years ago, but it was not far enough away for a hideout and too far away to commute to from San Francisco, so we didn't. I must say I didn't like your name suggestions, though. Why don't you just call it The Chemical Bond (a name which is capable of meaning many things to many people) and let it go at that? Then you could call your horse Don Pauling's Resonance, and go tilting at windmills. Your corral, of course, would have the obvious 'The Benzene Ring' cognomen, and the windmill, 'The Alpha-helix' even if not strictly accurate, and the toilet 'The Phenylketone Kollector'.

Anyway, it is wonderful that you have it, and I hope that you are able to use it fully.

Ramona is at a tremendously charming stage, crawling all around, tremendously reactive to stimuli, and an extremely good and easy baby. The boys are all in school, and seem also to be blossoming. Linie is repeating the first grade because he wasn't mature enough to compete satisfactorily last year, and it seems to be for the better in spite of the temporary embarrassment of being in with kids he considered babies last year. Petie is in senior kindergarten, and is his usual humorous and contained self, and Chris is in junior kindergarten, making a nuisance of his constant boisterousness.

We are anxious to see Pete and his family, including John Charles Thomas Lawrence Tibbets Gregorio Pauling (I note, by the way, that Pete still refers to the poor babe as Gregorio, so I asked him why he didn't name him Gregory in the first place, or even Gregorius? Then he could be just like his old man, Gregarius Gregorius!). I've been trying to convince him (as I have been Crel) that he doesn't have to stay stuck in the illustrious ruts impressed into the earth by his Pop, but may branch off into any and all kinds of endeavor, but I don't know whether it will have any effect on either.

The older children, Linie especially, asks very often about his grandparents, talks about going swimming in the pool (he swims nicely, by the way), can pick out Pasadena on the globe, and is very interested by the fact that his parents have parents, and so on. He was reading the other day about Cyrus McCormick in one of his books, and this brought up the problem of the great-great-grandfather, a difficult concept. Anyway, we are thinking of taking a trip with the family to Pasadena next summer, if all works out well and you can put us up for a while.

Best wishes and much aloha from us all. By the way, here is an absolutely delicious recipe we've been serving for special parties:

3909 Round Top Drive

Honolulu, Hawaii

September 26, 1956

Dear Pop

I have for a long time wanted to tell you that Anita and I wish to continue our $50,000 annual gift for a minimum of five years. It seems to me to be a very worthwhile project, and one that we have no doubts about whatsoever.

I enclose a reprint by one of the local psychologists, with whom I have occasionally worked clinically. He is very much interested in your opinion, and stops me several times a week to ask if you have a written anything. He says that what he wants to do is persuade Penfield to come and work with you, and that great things would result.

Anita and I are tremendously pleased at your San Simeon acquisition. I hope you use it and really get some rest periodically. Some months ago you wrote saying that ten more productive years remained to you, but I feel that the years can be stretched if you do not overdo to the point of exhaustion. That is the only thing that worries me about your extensive travelling--it must be tiring, in spite of all your experience and savoir-faire.

I have just finished a note to Mom telling about affairs here. We are very anxious to have you visit us in our new house, but I am afraid that it will not be done in time for a Christmas visit this year. In addition we are thinking of making a trip en famille to California next summer to pay you a visit, primarily for your grandchildren's sake in order that they may see at first hand that which they talk about so often.

If you have any comments on Sid's article, please let me know. He would be tickled to death if you wrote him directly. And I shouldn't be surprised if some day he popped in to pay a visit.

Much love

Linus