April 27, 2023
Dear Donald,

Thank you very much for your letter.  Last evening, when Klemens came over, he told me about your texted inquiry about my well-being.  I apologize for the delay.  I hadn't answered your letter, because except for the news that I'm getting old, older, the oldest, I didn't know what to write.  In two months I'll be 93.

Meanwhile, I've been revisiting my childhood and singing a lulaby to myself:

Schlaf, Kindlein, schlaf.
Der Vater hüt' die Schaf.
Die Mutter schüttelt's Bäumelein
Da fällt herab ein Träumelein
Schlaf, Kindlein, Schlaf.

Sleep, baby, sleep.
The father guards the sheep.
The mother shakes the little tree.
Then falls a dream for you to see.
Sleep, baby, sleep.

Theology is irresistible. The Father who guards the sheep is identified in Psalms 23 and 80. The girl who wants the apple is named in Genesis 3:6. Either she was as smart as Shakespeare's Portia in the Merchant of Venice, or it was her lawyer who pointed out to her that although the Code prohibited her from touching or eating a forbidden apple, the Code did not prohibit her from shaking the forbidden tree or any of the other non-forbidden trees in the Garden, nor did the Code set aside the provision by which gravity would cause the apples from all the shaken trees to fall to the ground where they would then be integrated, and thus become indistinguishable (from all the other bad apples) and since death by starvation was not in the cards, could thereafter be eaten with impunity.  However, there's no appellate tribunal for hearing an appeal from a universal death sentence which turns out to be a blessing in disguise.

So that's a sample of what's been going through my mind as I become senile. My very best wishes to yourself and to Jan for a healthy and happy spring and summer. Jochen