Now Hare This!

Chuck Jones’ letters to his daughter, Linda

 

We are at the end of my high school years.  Here are a few photos, including my graduation dress, three of my classmates, polo, branding, and one of our class rooms…next we’ll move on to college in the Fall…

 

Chuck Jones’ letters to his daughter, Linda

 

May 9, 1955

 

Post # 66

 

Howdy ma’am,

     Wonder why anybody ever went to the trouble of hyphenating “madam” into “ma’am”.  It’s much harder to write a “’” than it is a “d”, especially on a typewriter where you have to stop, hit the shift key and then look for the “’” which is never where I expect it to be.  Seems to me it should be where the % is or maybe the _ or even the (.  Not the right ( but the left (.  The right ( actually looks like this: ).  Know that this # is?  It’s a tic-tac-toe graph for small insects like cockroaches.  If you ever want to please a cockroach leave a few of these around on a blank sheet of paper.  In the morning you will find several tiny completed games of tic-tac-toe.

     I just talked to Dottie at home.  She said that your grades were there, which indicated that you were still alive and that they were excellent, which indicated that even if you were deceased that your last days were remarkably successful. I said that I was sure that you were not dead; that all those letters you had written in the last few days had been improperly addressed and had ended up in the dead-letter box at the post office.  I assured her that dead letters in no wise indicated dead daughter.  She hastened to say that she hadn’t been concerned, only curious, she said the year she graduated from college she hadn’t written her folks in seven weeks and I mustn’t be too hard on you, there were eight million things to do the last couple of months in school and that we mustn’t expect any thing from you but bad news.  I said that it would be better if we never heard from you at all, wouldn’t it then?  (What a beautiful sentence—shows what you can do just by thinking beautiful thoughts).  She said “Hell no, that isn’t what I meant at all!  Stop twisting my words.  Of course I would be delighted to hear from her.  She’s already written I know.  Stop picking on her was all I said.”  I replied civilly enough that I wasn’t picking on you.  She said I was, too.  So I’m picking on you.

     They are actually at work on the new studio!  I saw it with my own eyes.  Holes being dug in the earth!  Cement being poured into the holes!  Unbelievable! Perhaps by this time next week they will be digging holes in our new lot and pouring cement there-in.  What a fantastic age we are living in.  Imagine!  Pouring cement into holes in the ground!  Cain’t believe it now.

     Nobody said nothin’ really about you not attending Shirley’s gathering of adobe girls.  What was intended was that your driving that highway without more current driving experience comes under the heading of foolish risk.  Calculated risks, O.K.  Foolish risks, no.  Confidence and basic ability is not the point.  Long distance driving is safe only when you drive by reflex.  When you have not been driving a lot it is necessary to approach each driving crisis, large or small, as a separate problem and in a hundred or so miles the mind is exhausted and driving becomes very dangerous indeed.  That is why this is a foolish risk.  The train is not very expensive and is considered fairly safe.  Why not?  I am sure you would have just as much fun while there.

     Now why did I use the back of the paper?  Surely I have no interest in saving Warner Bros.such a picayune sum.  Friend of mine once visited William Randolph Hearst at that gigantic castle at San Simeon.  The thing that impressed him most, aside from almost running over a camel, was that on the table at dinner was an exquisite solid gold spray vase, emblazoned with lovely scroll work in shell design and studded with precious stones.  It dated from the fifteenth century and may have been the work of Benvenuto Cellini.  Well, what do you think was in that priceless object?  Paper napkins.

 

I must leave you now and traipse me way to art class.  Wish me luck.

 

I love you emphatically.

 

Daddy

Chuck Jones’ letters to his daughter, Linda

Friday, April 28, 1955

Post # 65

Dearest Linda,

 

life has always been so serene.Boy, if I ever have to go through the paper work again you have to go through to build a house, I’ll live in a dog kennel first.  I’ve signed my name to every thing from an escrow paper to a guarantee assuring the Bank of America that I don’t have mange.  Every time I sign my name I always feel that it may eventually show up on a demand note for a million dollars.  My  It’s like having babies, there must be an easier way, it just hasn’t been discovered.

 

I am very happy about your making Scripps [Women’s College].  It seems so satisfactory in so many ways.  I am sure you will be happy there, will get a fine education and will meet many other fine men and women.  Of course we are proud of you, very proud.

  

We hoe to be well into the house by the end of school, if all this paper doesn’t get tangled we should be starting in a week or two.  Kernie [contractor/builder] thinks he can finish within sixty days, which would make it early in July.  I realize that things seldom go that smoothly so we won’t depend on that date, but it will be thrilling just to get started.

 

The new studio was Okayed by jack Warner yesterday; work will start Monday to be finished early in September.  So.  A nice clean new place to live and a nice new clean place to work, a nice fresh new college girl in the family, all in one year.  Seems pretty wonderful to me.

 

See you in only four weeks or sooner if possible.

 

All my love,

 

Daddy

Chuck Jones Quote of the Day: Animator's Sense

"Animation in the animator's sense, exists independently from color, scenic, backgrounds, sound effects and even dialogue. It even exists without a camera. If you can take a sheaf of a hundred or so drawing and by flipping it achieve the action of life your are striving for then you are an animator. If you primarily use other means: color, sound, cutting, then you are something else. You may be working in the animation field but you are not a animator."

--Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones Quote of the Day: Couldn't Quit

"It took me twenty-five years to find that I had no talent for drawing but then I couldn't quit because I drew too well."

--Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones Quote of the Day: Success is Assured

"If you have ignorance and confidence success is assured. "

--Chuck Jones

Two Chuck Jones Exhibits Open in Phoenix; CHUCK JONES: AN ANIMATED LIFE at the Phoenix Airport Museum & THE BOOKS OF CHUCK JONES at the Tempe Public Library

Chuck Jones Center for Creativity and The Phoenix Airport Museum are proud to present Chuck Jones: An Animated Life, on view now through May 16, 2010 in the Terminal 4, Level 3 Gallery.  Chuck Jones: An Animated Life is presented in conjunction with upcoming exhibitions and events to be held at the Tempe Center for the Arts beginning in February of 2010.  A concurrent exhibition, The Books of Chuck Jones, is now on view at the Tempe, Arizona Public Library and will close June 18, 2010.  

 

Animated film director and creator Chuck Jones helped bring to life many of Warner Bros. most famous characters--Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Elmer Fudd and Porky Pig.  The list of characters he created himself includes Road Runner, Wile E. Coyote, Marvin Martian, Pepé le Pew, Michigan J. Frog and many others.  In addition, Jones was a prolific artist whose work has been exhibited in galleries and museums worldwide.

In a career spanning over 70 years, Jones made more than 300 animated films, winning three Oscars ® as director and in 1996 an honorary Oscar for Lifetime Achievement.  Among the many awards and recognitions, one of the most valued was teh honorary life membership from the Directors Guild of America. 

Chuck Jones leaves a legacy of brilliance, comedy, joy and laughter that will live on forever.  

And photos from the Tempe Public Library exhibit, The Books of Chuck Jones:

 

Chuck Jones Quote of the Day: Invent Roads

"The roadrunner of the Western deserts existed over a million years ago, before there were roads, so man, in order to justify the verity of the name 'road-runner,' had to invent roads."

--Chuck Jones

Chuck Jones Quote of the Day: Dogs Eat

"Dogs eat to give their bodies a rest, man dines to set his heart in motion."

--Chuck Jones  

Chuck Jones’ letters to his daughter, Linda

 

April 15, 1955

 

Post #64

 

Dearest Linda,

 

Today is the Ides of April for many people, TAX DAY.    Fortunately I chose this year to get my return in early.  What a wonderful feeling.  Why didn’t I ever do it before?

 

Three men were dining in a Chinese restaurant and eating those little Chinese cookies that are folded over and enclose a printed fortune.  The first one said something about meeting a tall dark blonde, the second insisted today was a great day for financial investments, but the third one said, “HELP, I AM BEING HELD PRISONER IN A CHINESE BAKERY”

 

We had a wonderful time this trip and of course it is always nice to enjoy vicariously the pleasure a new person obtains on first visiting the school.  Judy [my cousin, my age] was completely enchanted, both by the environment and the warm friendly reception she received from everybody.  She said she was completely relaxed, more relaxed in fact in a few hours at the ranch than she had been in several years at [her boarding school].  I think she meant this was a difference in the general characteristics of the two schools and not just a personal reaction.  Whatever the faults may be of the [your] school, this is certainly one of the attributes and a major one at that, I think students learn the art of easy conversation and getting along with others to a much greater extent than they do at most schools.  I realize of course that by and large we see the student body on their best behaviour but I make this appraisal with this in mind and it still seems true to me.  I have never met a group of young people under any conditions in which courtesy; good manners and easy friendliness were more prevalent.

 

I deeply hope that your affairs are in reasonable order.  If they are not and you need me, I am enclosing a note to [the headmaster] to be used if and when you need it.

 

It is very difficult, I know, to have your emotions so whipped about at a time in your scholastic career when stability is so damned important.  It is unfortunate, but it is not insurmountable.  I think a mark of womanhood (or manhood) is the ability of the individual to do what she must do in spite of vagaries of outrageous fortune (to paraphrase some unfortunate poet).  I know that you have a great and fine friend in F…. [maie friend] and this is something that many people never enjoy.  I am not speaking in this particular sentence for you, but for myself, but I love that boy.  Not because of his accomplishments, perhaps in spite of them, but because he is a man and a gentleman.  It is hard to know where the feeling of true rapport originates between men and I have spoken few words to F…., yet I would trust him in any way and be proud to have the opportunity to do so.  I know it is a hackneyed phrase, but if I had had a son of my own, my hopes would have been that he could grow up to be as F…. is.  Yes, you are fortunate for I know he has a deep affection for you.  Another mark of adult-hood is the willingness to acknowledge the need, at times, for help and love from another.  If you are still in the emotional jungle, there are two men who may be of assistance to you at any time: F…. is one and I am the other.

 

All things being equal, we should be starting to build [our new house] in the next two or three weeks.  Keep all fingers crossed.  There has been so little of the kind of irritations and conflict supposed to accompany planning and building that I’m beginning to wonder what kind of concentrated turmoil is in store for us.

 

You, personally, are wonderful, I love you…