Another Letter to Granddaughter #1

08 Sep 2011 1 Comment

by Sheila Clapkin in Letters

Dear Granddaughter #1,

I just mailed a package to you. It was a little more $$ to get it to you faster, so I sprung for the extra change. I hope it fits. I think the guy put a small instead of a medium and I did not realize it. It looks plentiful in size. I hope it works for you, but either way, I do want you to let me know. It will keep you nice and warm.  I know it is hot now, but within a few weeks it gets cold, especially up by the mountains where you are located.

I also sent a letter with Glen’s address and phone number as per your request. When I spoke to him last month he was so delighted to hear you may be contacting him to learn more about your dad. I thought about some thing you may want to know about your father.  I have had quite a number of conversations with him over the years. I do miss him and I know that he loved you with all of his heart.  He thought you are the best thing to happen to him in his life. He was strong in his values. What he believed was unflappable.  He was very personable. He had a nice one on one personality. He liked to talk to people on an individual basis.  He would always say how beautiful Rachel is and how much he enjoyed you.

He was a reformed alcoholic but never did drugs.  He was very proud of the fact that he kicked the alcohol and did everything in his power to stay clean. He hated the thought of booze entering his life again in any way.

Your dad did not believe in drugs and never did any.  He was dedicated to his job and felt he was doing well for the people in his police community.  He stuck to what it was that he felt he had to do.  He just set about doing it.  He was strong mentally and physically. He believed in God totally and absolutely.  He turned to God and Christianity to survive.  He felt strongly that God was guiding him. He was not ready to die. God took him for a reason I do not know or can’t even guess.

I do know one thing for sure, if your dad could sit across the table from you he would be so proud of you and what you are becoming as well as your beauty would take his breath away. I have often thought since he passed that he would be ever hopeful that you would see the same light he has seen. Your father was very intelligent in his approach to life.

You are lovely and wonderful, capable, able and important. I know that and I hope you know it, too.

I think you will love moving on through school and being done with that era. You have grown away from that kind of education.  YOU are going to have to be willing to have some stress and some deadlines to meet, but the end results of satisfaction will override the means to the end.  You are like your father in this respect, if you want it you will do it and you will not stop until you get there. What he wanted for you was to have you learn as many positive things about life as you can, as any parent wants and he would want you to remember him in an encouraging way. He would want you to tell your children about him being a confident and strong-minded person and tell them how much he loved you. He would especially want to be remembered. He would never want you to forget him and he would want you to do some special things in his honor and in his memory.

Love, Grandma

Dear Granddaughter,

26 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment

by Sheila Clapkin in Letters

Dear Granddaughter,

I want to tell you something.

I want you to know that my life has been successful and I am proud that I came out of many situations ok.  I want to tell you how I got here.  It was not easy and shh don’t tell anyone, but I used to have a couple of bookshelves full of self-help books which helped to answer many questions I had and helped to pave the way for me to progress with understanding and a calmer nature. Living life helped somewhat, listening to others helped a lot, learning through experiences of mine and of others are good lessons, and especially learning to pay attention helped to make me quite observant.  Sometimes I stare at the person talking or giving a lecture and they seem to talk just to me.  It was that way when I learned to look and stare and it is that way now as I keep staring, listening and learning.

Now in life, I have worked hard, saved my money and spent it too for important things that made me happy and helped our family.  So maybe I sound like I was born a thousand years ago, with all of the stories and all the things I have done to stay afloat mentally and physically, but it has only been 71 years. Not long in the scheme of things, but long enough to have learned a trick or two. I remember I had a boyfriend when I was 16. He was desperate for some $$ to take a bus home to see his mother or something like seeing a mother and a bus ride. Sounded important, right?  Now I realize it was a crock, but he said he would bring the money back on the weekend.  He did not and I never saw him again.  He absconded with my $200.00 and I was horrified that someone would do such a dastardly thing to me. My mother was so mad at me and told me I had learned a lesson.  She said it was a cheap lesson because the next con artists would ask for more and I would know not to trust them. She was so right, because the next person that asked me for money did not get any. I said, “ I don’t have any money.” I lied, but I did not lose any more money to the “money crooks. “I learned to spend just a little money in public. I never let anyone realize that I might have more.  I learned to be very cagey in the public eye and I learned never to do way more than those around me. I am still very careful not to stand out in any way that would put me in jeopardy or draw unkind attention to me.

My parents taught me when I was very young that you do not show off. You do not show off with your clothes, with your money and your buying power; you never order more than others or more lavishly; you basically play the low-key card. This is a good lesson to learn and even more so in this ever changing, ever more dangerous world. You see that I am driving a very low-key car. I inherited it from the person who taught me to paint the low public profile picture.

A neighbor moved from our neighborhood to a very fancy upscale area. She sparkled her diamonds and tooted the horn of her fancy, shiny car. There was light all around her.  Some guys followed her home and when she went into her garage they followed her in. They tied her up and took all of her sparkling jewels and drove off in her fancy car.  She lived to tell about it, thank God, but no one told her about playing the low-key card or painting a low-key picture. Perhaps if she had been listening or learned to be low-key, she would not have sparkled so much. I’ll beet she doesn’t sparkle much anymore and is living a quiet good life. The best revenge, you know is living well.

Another Letter to My Granddaughter

26 Aug 2011 Leave a Comment

by Sheila Clapkin in Letters

I know I wrote earlier in the week, and I know you have not had time to respond, but an idea floated by and I caught it.  It is that you can do any thing; it is just a matter of what you want to do.

So, you are scratching your head and saying, yeah, so what.  Well, so everything.  You just have to number your desires and set about achieving them.  I envision it something like a grocery list or “a what to do list.”  I make them all of the time and get most everything done. It is a little extra work, but I can’t remember everything; who can?  Well, those who have a photographic memory can remember EVERYTHING, and that is something I would dearly love to have and do not.  You can make up your mind about what you think, but in the mean time, make a “what to do list,” and do things on it.  Is there any reason why you shouldn’t?

Remember how we use to cook together and make really great meals.  We would make them here and you were to take them home and bake them or finish them off at home for a meal. I was told that while the things we made were delicious, you never followed through with the cooking; just left the goods on the sink leaving it to chance as to who would cook it.  So for me, the key to my success if you want to call living well, success, is something I learned in the third grade.  It is following through. I learned that I had to finish what I started. I have had many lessons in this area and I do everything in my power to finish what I start. I am obsessive about it.  Not that I condone being obsessive, but a little obsession is a good thing in my book of books.  When you are doing a job cleaning or fixing at home, and you finish a job and do it well it is respecting your home.  When you follow through with a friend it is respecting that friend.  If you say you are going to do something, do it. If you are going some place, be there and be on time. If you are having a conversation with someone, do equal amounts of listening and sharing.  If the person needs more attention, give it to them. You are respecting their needs. When an assignment is given, either at work or in your classroom, do it to the best of your being, which is showing respect for yourself and who you are. Respect for your self is the key to living well.

Sincerely and with a great love,

Your Grandma

Today’s Bits and Pieces: Blanky Farms Chicken

31 Dec 2008 1 Comment

by Sheila Clapkin in Letters

Dec. 29, 2008

Dear Blanky Farms Consumer Affairs, (name Blanky protects the brand name in question)

I am busy, just like you. I do not want to write this letter, but I can’t sleep at night for wanting you to know how I feel and how worried I am about your chicken product.

I am a very long time consumer of your products. I have 5 children and we do eat a lot of chicken.  Lately, I have purchased Blanky Farms chicken and it is tough.(more than once this past month) It does not cook properly and it looks wrong and it tastes wrong.  When you have cooked chicken for so many years, you know when something just is not right.  True, I do not go to the same market all of the time and do buy Blanky Farms product from different markets, but the product name is there and the product should be the same.  I do not buy off brand chickens because of the tough, wrong tasting, wrong texture I have been experiencing with your chickens lately. More

Bits and Pieces: Amending the Zoning Designation

10 Sep 2008 Leave a Comment

by Sheila Clapkin in Letters

To: The Huntington Park City Council
Ofelia Hernandez, Mayor

From: SheilaClapkin, President, Jos. Levin Realty Corp. of L.A.

Re: Amending The Zoning Designation from Industrial/Manufacturing to General
Commercial

Huntington Park is my Hometown. I was born, raised and educated here. My family has been in business in Huntington Park for sixty-nine years in pretty much the same spot. We built new buildings on the corner of Soto and Slauson fifteen years ago to the specifications set by the city of Huntington Park. Our buildings made a significant improvement to that corner in appearance as well as the use of this prominent corner.
We have been able to successfully rent all of our units during these years. Now you want to make changes that will impact and perhaps destroy our present Industrial/Manufacturing complex. You will hinder our abilities to rent and do business in Huntington Park. We do not want you to do this rezoning to General Commercial.
Have you looked at Pacific Boulevard in order to revitalize and enhance its commercial capabilities? In the northern sections, there are blocks on that street that if revitalized would add to the drama that has always been part of the Boulevard. It is already a built in commercial district. Why do you want to go after us, the little guys that have served this community for going on three fourths of a century? Why just these few blocks, I ask you and not Pacific Boulevard which is already commercial? Why not a revitalization,, rather than a destruction and obliteration of what is already working well and serving our community in its Industrial/Manufacturing needs?
Sincerely Yours,

Sheila Clapkin
President, Jos. Levin Realty Corp. of L.A.