Dear Cyndy,

Thank you for your letter. This reply will probably be short,
because I've been caught up in practical projects with no 
occasion or time to meditate. Consequently there's little 
on my mind, except my feet which feel as if I'd just taken
them on a twenty mile hike. I wish I had. Instead I spent
much of yesterday, June 27, my eightieth birthday, - and
today the introduction into my eighty first year, in building
bookshelves, forty linear feet of them,  for those of
Margrit's books which we brought here from Detroit.  Klemens
wants to see them shelved, to have the opportunity to pick
and choose what he might read. As for myself, - I'm embarrassed
to admit, I feel constrained to limit my reading largely to
my own writing, - for the simple reason that if I am to continue
with my novel and with my essays, I need to be vividly aware of
the context, - else my memory being what it is, continuity might
be entirely lost.

So far as the newly constructed bookshelves are concerend,
this project was one of the infrequent occasions on which
saving material for many years proved its value. To support
ten shelves I needed twenty brackets, - the ones which I had
stored in the garage, some of them new, had labels with prices
variously of 79 cents and 99 cents, - whereas similar items at
Home Depot, are now sold for $4.59. Who says there's no inflation?
The only items I needed to purchase were wooden shelves, twelve
inches wide. Again at Home Depot, I bought a single 48" x 96"
sheet of 3/4" plywood. I had the sheet cut into 4 strips 12"
wide, and each strip cut in half. I went home with eight pieces
of shelving, each 4 feet long. The remaining two pieces I
cut from plywood which had been stored in the garage. When
I had finished putting up the shelves, I decided the accumulation
of lumber in the garage needed to be - rationalized; and to this
end I carried the pieces of wood of various sizes kinds and
shapes into the driveway, - the sun was very hot - sorted and 
replaced them in some semblance of order. All that is far easier 
to recite than to do.

Tomorrow I have six patients, on Wednesday, four, on Thursday, one.
Come Friday, it'll be time to start getting ready to return to
Virginia. We plan to leave July 7, coming back here July 23. I wish 
we could stay longer, - but on July 26, my cousin Marion is coming
to spend a few days with us. How long she can stand it, remains
to be seen. Then, too, on July 26, or soon thereafter, Jim Cooper, 
the congenial roofer from Lowell, will start repairing the flat roof 
over the third floor dormer.  On August 2, unless the Appeals Court 
has ruled against me, Margaret and I hope to spend a few days on 
Nantucket.  While we're there, I will, of course turn on the water 
supply to sink, shower and toilet for a few days. My effrontery might 
produce some fireworks, - but I doubt it.

What happens the rest of the summer depends on whether and what
I hear from the court. If they rule against me, I'll try to appeal,
and we'll go to Virginia; if they rule for me, we'll go to Nantucket
and I'll work on the house. If they don't issue a ruling, we'll spend
as much of August, September and October in Virginia as is compatible
with my practice. Whatever happens, I won't be bored.

My best to you and Ned.

Jochen