Out of Touch

Back in the day, my father wrote to the London Missionary Society that our Mission HQ on Tarawa was ... inadequate as an HQ. The Society reminded my father that it was "fully equipped". My father sent them the details. Dining chairs "keep collapsing under guests". Wicker chairs "collapsed at first sitting". A trolley was "near to collapse". A bookshelf was "nearer to collapse". A wardrobe was "a tottering shell" ... OBSERVATION: My impression, looking over the correspondence, is that my father -- and my parents -- were doing a heroic work, yet this tended to be obscured by such everyday business.