Dear Marion,

In a child, the vitreous body is a relatively firm gel.
As one grows older the vitreous becomes liquid. Coursing
through the vitreous are fibers which are anchored at
the far periphery of the retina. When the vitreous becomes
liquid it collapses and falls away from the retina. It
never recovers its former consistency or position. The fibers
however remain attached for variiable periods of time. They
tug on the retina, which knows no pain (no pain fibers in the
retina) but responds to the tugging of the vitreous fibers
with flashes of light, such as Judy saw. The flashes subside
not because the vitreous resumes its former configuration,
but because the fibers detach, break, dissolve, - imagine it
as you wish.  If the patient is unlucky, the fibers do not
dissolve before they have torn a hole in the retina, breaking
the suction, letting fluid from the liquid vitreous leak
through the hole and detach the retina. If the hole can be
identified before the retina detaches, it can be sealed with
application of a cryo-probe to the overlying sclera, or by a
focused argon laser beam through the pupil.  Since failure to
treat a hole might lead to detachment and a lawsuit, but
treating a non-existent hole is reimbursed as if the hole
were real, there is a strong bias, if in doubt, to go ahead
and treat.

The pictures which Klemens put on the Web came from my camera,
which as you see by all the black exposures has an intermittent
defect that makes it virtually unusable. I've bought a new one.
In the earlier pictures notice the magnificent mountain laurel
on the lawn, notice the 50 year old hemlock hedge encircling
the house. I trimmed the hedge annualy for the past twenty years.
It's now out of control. I've given up. Picture #43 is taken from
the beach on NAntucket and shows our house in the distant background.
Notice its wonderful isolation; we're surrounded by conservation land.
The truck is pouring concrete for the basement floor. There are
four pictures (44-47) which show the hoist that I improvised for
sliding the hot water tank down the incline of the basement stairs.
The Konnarock picture show the huge truck unloading shingles
directly onto the roof. That was last summer. Picture #82 shows
how the roots of the maple tree which sprouted from a rhododendron
planting 55 years ago, have made the driveway slope toward the
hedge. The reason we're not in Konnarock now is my concern that
with 2 feet of snow, the car might have gotten stuck or slid
into the hedge or both.

You ask about my parents feelings about returning to Germany.
They did visit for about 5 months in 1956. My mother enjoyed
the trip; my father less so. Returning would have put them at
a severe competitive disadvantage in the struggle for existence,
and they never considered going back. The same is true for me.
I have been very fortunate in this country. Unless I were much
wealthier than I am, my life in Germany, - or anywhere in Europe
would be much more constricted. Where would I find three houses
like the one in Belmont, in Konnarock and on Nantucket? And,
of course, giving up the proximity to Klemens and his family
is unthinkable. Besides, under the pressure of Americanization,
deutsche Kultur seems almost to have vanished. Thomas Mann is
quoted as having said: Wo ich bin, da ist deutsche Kultur.
I share his arrogance.

Jochen