Dear Cyndy,

If the term "congratulations" weren't so repugnant to me for its
traditional emptiness, I would congratulate you - and Ned, and Elizabeth
and Joanna - on the honor that Elizabeth has received, news of which
you forwarded to me. By default, I'll write that I won't disclaim my
small share of the satisfaction and happiness that the award entails,
concerned as always for a better understanding of what it all means.

Perhaps you'll consider me perversely extravagant, when I write,
not only am I enthusiastic about oral history, but I believe oral
history, the telling, the tales of what one has seen and heard and
thought to be the only history worthy of the name! I'm fascinated by
the coincidence of the event and the telling of the event implicit
in the English usage "history", corroborated to my mind by the
German "Geschichte" - story, derived as it is from "Geschehen" -
event. All history other than oral history, i.e. other than the 
re-telling of what is in ones own memory, seems to me a pale shadow
of what is real, and the more elaborate it gets, e.g. political history,
social history, economic history, the more pale the shadow and the
less persuasive to me.  I acknowledge, however, that I'm deliberately
twisting the term oral history, to buttress my own prejudiced
understanding.

When I admit - or boast - of some slight melancholy, it's not as
if I were sitting motionless and paralysed in some corner of a
darkened room staring blankly at a blank wall. All I meant to
explain is how, from time to time I am afflicted with a relative
inflexibility of thought and feeling which makes me feel even
more awkward than usual. Often such episodes of dullness are
requited with spells of intellectual and emotional exuberance
which facilitate compositions that make me feel much satisfied
with myself. It's the Narcissus syndrome which you will agree,
is not necessarily, a desirable consequence.

This was one of the mornings when I get up early to drive Klemens
to the airport. At 4 a.m. the timer turned on the radio which was
reveiving, via NPR, the news from London, delivered with an
engaging English accent. I had no time to listen, but dressed
expeditiously to make a cup of hot tea which is all that Klemens,
nowadays rigorously losing weight, accepts for breakfast.  In the
car, on the way to the airport, I commented on the good fortune
with which Margaret and I are blessed, having the opportunity to
roam at will in this large house, -it's our 49th year -, occupied
each day with the physical and mental exercise of keeping it
reasonably neat and clean, and not least, being surrounded with an
accumulation of books and letters, furniture, pictures and memorabilia
of a life-time, daily confirmations of what we have been and what
we are; a situation which I compared favorably with the dismal
convention of selling the house, investing the proceeds in a
pre-packaged retirement community, then finding ourselves in
cramped quarters one tenth the size of what we had abandoned, 
beset with boredom, anger and ennui, and ultimately at the mercy
of "activity coordinators" to keep our minds occupied, and of
psychiatrists prescribing medications to ward off sadness.
Klemens agreed. The drive back from the airport at 5:30 a.m.
was easy.

When I arrived home, I had a new structures for chapters 51 and 52
in mind, and I needed to write before memory vanished. Not long
until your very sympathetic letter arrived. I thank you especially
for your indulgence with my quirkiness. After a bit more than an
hour of writing, I became tired and went to bed again. Margaret
let me sleep until the indecent hour of 1 p.m. I retrieved my
surveillance images from Nantucket and Konnarock, and started once
more to write. Writing, I suspect, is what keeps me sane. If, at
the hearing on April 5, Judge Macdonald sends me to jail, I'm
confident, if I have the opportunity to write, that I can survive
the confinement. What will kill me is the television.

Please stay well and happy; give my best to Ned.

Jochen