Dear Marion,

Just before noon today I had a chat with Gary Hayes,
the local retiree from the Forest Service who, it turns out,
derives much satisfaction from clearing our land of the uprooted
and of the mutilated trees. Wanda, his wife, brought us a bag
of last year's corn on the cob, preserved in her deep freezer.
She recommended it as being very good. Gary himself explained
to me that while he was felling the uprooted trees that are
already leaning ominously in the direction of the house, he
would need a helper to drive the tractor.  His plan is to use
the tractor's boom to push the falling tree into the desired
direction.  I explained that though I'd never driven a tractor,
it was never too late to learn. He seemed pleased that I
offered to help.

In order to foster relationships with the local populace,
I decided to get gas for the car at the village store, even though
it's twenty cents a gallon more expensive. Then I drove on the 
recently rebuilt highway across Iron Mountain to Chilhowie.
What was for decades a tortuous road, narrow, winding and unpaved,
has metamorphosed into a two-lane superhighway, easy and pleasant
to drive, when I succeed in suppressing all nostalgia for the
obstacles of my childhood. My first stop was the Chilhowie post
office from which I mailed a book that Margaret had borrowed from
the Belmont Public Library. The postage was more than the fine
which would have accrued had we waited to return the book when we
were back in Belmont.

Next I drove to Farris Funeral Services in Abingdon to approve
a drawing for a 12" x 24" grave marker for the site where we will
bury the ashes in July. The secretary with whom I negotiated,
a plump, middle-aged lady, had the most deeply tinted lips that
have, within memory, attracted my attention. I wondered naughtily,
but of course in silence, whether her appearance was an advertisement
for the establishment's artful embalming or perhaps even an
economizing by-product of the same. The drawing was exactly
as specified.  I had provided both a rubbing and a photograph
of the grave marker for my father to serve as a pattern. The check
which I gave them included a $40 installation fee. Once the stone
has been completed, I'll rendevous at the cemetery with the funeral
service employee to show him the exact location.

In the course of the relatively long (2 hours') drive, I mused on
our recent correspondence about art, with the conclusion that the
topic is very complex and very important. Your interpretation of
the painting of Mme Matisse strikes me as sensitive and poignant.
I'm impressed and persuaded. Maybe you missed your calling as an
art historian. I was reminded of Fine Arts 1, which I audited in
the autumn of 1946, a survey course of Western art, given in
staccato bursts of oratory by Professor Leonard Opdycke. I remember
the darkened lecture hall, its screen illuminated in rapid succession
with images of memorable art, - nonetheless all too soon forgotten.

Unable to consider the issues systematically, I let myself be consoled
by Nietzsche who wrote: "Der Wille zum System ist ein Mangel an
Rechtschaffenheit". The expectation that being sluiced through the
special exhibition rooms of a museum would lead to understanding of
even a single work of art, seems as unrealistic to me as an attempt
to engage in meaningful discussion - about anything - before the
traffic light changes. 

About fifty-five years ago, soon after the end of the war, the
"Alien Property Custodian" brought to this country high quality
copies of Rembrandt etchings and Duerer woodcuts.  My parents'
house had just been built, and to decorate it, I bought two of 
each of these reproductions, one for my parents and one for myself.
My parents were enthusiastic. The prints were framed, and I have
the opportunity to look at them each day that we are in Konnarock.
They have become part of the house.  I consider the presumption
to distinguish a meticulous copy of an etching or of a woodcut
from a original, a frivolous affectation.  I also look, when I am
here, at the two very impressive oil paintings of the North Sea
and an oil painting of a landscape in the Lueneburger Heide which
have been in the family as long as I can remember.  In Belmont I
look at a set of watercolors of the Scottish lakes which were
given to me by a talented and gifted and appreciative patient.
It is as integral elements of my immediate environment that I
experience and value art. My home, mein Zuhause, is my museum.

More in a subsequent letter.

Jochen