Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. I worry about your falling.
I hope I'm correct when I say that if your shoulder is
not exquisitely painful now, the X-rays aren't likely
to disclose any serious injury.

I think I can underatnd how Ned feels about your cleaning
the pond. I have similar emotions when shrubs or trees 
or ferms or grasses that I've become accustomed to and 
accepted as my environment are trimmed or uprooted.

With respect to the restaurant dinner to which you allude,
I marvel at your social stamina. I've never been much capable
of that sort of celebration and now, less than ever. 
Margaret and I are being lassoed to a 90th birthday party
at the Harvard Club on Commonwealth Avenue for a loyal
patient of thirty years, and I don't see how I can get
out of it without causing lots of hurt feelings. Wish 
I could send you as my deputy.

Spent the day first in the Belmont, then in the Newton
Library. There, rather than in the Harvard Law Library
because they're accessible by car. Both have spacious
parking lots. To Harvard square I'd have to take the bus.
I finally got around to reading the law cases which Justice
Macdonald cited in support of his ruling against me.
It's dicouraging, because what he referred to has nothing
to do with my case, almost as if he were making fun of me,
or hadn't bothered to read my brief.  I'm trying to condition
myself to losing the appeal, as I believe I will, not for
lack of rationale, but because the political winds are
blowing in the other direction.

You asked about the transatlantic correspondence between
my parents. My mother was overwhelmed by the details of
dissolving her household, getting the furniture and books
and medical instruments crated, getting visas and steamship
reservations, worrying about my health - at the time I had
a bone marrow reaction to medication which might have proved
fatal, - worrying about my father's anxiety and depression.
My father worried about his language and medical examinations;
about my mother's state of mind. He tried to work very hard,
but spent much time writing letters to my mother. He was
lonely, depressed and discouraged. There was much reciprocal
expression of affection. I had forgotten how hard my parents'
lives were in those years; perhaps I had never really 
understood.

Give my best to Ned, - and try harder not to fall again.

Jochen