Letter from Mom, October 15, 1962. I often have conversations with my friend, Linda Jo Pym, about our mothers. Her mother, Willa May, died this past October. My mother died last July. Her mother was a "saint" in the Theosophical Society. My mother was a "saint" in the Lutheran Church. They both involved themselves heavily in their chosen spiritual home. Willa May believed wholeheartedly in an afterlife and reincarnation. She believed so whole heartedly that she had plans for the afterlife. She planned to be a "greeter", someone who helps the newly departed pass over. At our meeting this past Wednesday, one member remarked that Willa May is surely busy now, with 155,000 newly passed souls to process, and even speculated that she may have been taken in time to prepare her for the deluge (pun intended) to come.

In 1962, my mother writes in part..."[concerning a Lutheran convention of some sort in Chicago from which she has just returned] Our convention was truly an 'experience'. i enjoyed it so much and felt we were really 'led by the Spirit' which was the theme. There was no anagonism on any one's part as we adopted the new constitution - lots of questions, but no selfishness. Dr. Eycamp was our chaplain. I hope you can hear her sometime. She is so wholly dedicated - a real saint - with uch to say - with much authority!"

She is concerned about my younger sister and her best friend visiting me at college, driving her friend's family car, and hoping we exhibit responsibility. She also wants me to do some p.r. " I hope that Mary can come back well impressed with our church college. [she came back well impressed with the boys at our church college]. I think you students have a heavy responsibility for reflecting the image of our Church and our Lord."

Then she talks about a storm out west, in which the winds hit my aunt and uncle's house in Portland, Oregon for four hours straight, collapsing their garage and knocking over an apple tree "The big fir trees in their yard swept the ground with their tips, but didn't break or up-root." Now that I live out here, I know whereof she speaks.

She finishes with religious concerns: "I hope you are going to church on Sundays, honey. And when you commune be sure to register it - whether you're here or there. Our church had no record of your communion the past year -because you didn't sign the envelope." Poor darling. I didn't sign the envelope because I wasn't there. A devotee of Ayn Rand (which I probably still was in 1962) would not be "communing" in any sense of the word.

Letter from the fiancee' in which he attends several plays presented at the College Drama Festival of Virginia, meets an old college buddy, and misses a dinner presentation by Edward Albee (no ticket to the dinner). He mentions a new "book" by Albee "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" and he ends with an interesting note to my roommate. "Tell her 'hello' from me. Tell her I think she's a pig. Tell her how I've always considered her a bitch and a self-righteous snob and that I was only decent to her because I thought you would like me to be that way. Tell her I still like her though, and will continue to d so as long as you continue to like her, as you do now I fear." I told her no such thing, but thinking back on it, I fear he was right.

He encloses the playbill, with comments. One Robert Lewis gave critiques after the performances. Larry says, "great man - could talk for hours. Bald head which looks like a huge misformed coconut!" Lewis apparently liked a performance of Carl Sandburg's poems and songs. "Lewis said best part was where one of the readers sang off key - true to Carl's ways, you know."

Larry liked a performance of "The Maids" by Jean Genet. "Great! Weird as they come. Illusions not quite believable. Char: were scitzoid [sic]." A play by James D. Pendleton called "The Oaks of Mamre" "has to do with Abraham's conflict[s] when told to sacrifice his son." Abraham played by Ben Simmons ("great actor"). Isaac played by Lynn Clark ( "whould have been sacrificed").

Our friend Gary Gisselman was in the cast of "Crawling Arnold" by Jules Feiffer, "mainly known for his cartoons in 'Village Voice' and 'Playboy'", Larry tells me (and no, I wouldn't have known in 1963). Act V of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" had an all girl cast.

It sounds like a good time. He says I would have found "at least some of it enjoyable."

Daily Bulletin, 26 February 1963
Headquarters 2D Logistical Command (C), U.S. Army
Fort Lee, Virginia

I look through these bulletins for any mention of Viet Nam, any foreshadowing of what is to come. There is nothing. There is an announcement of an Annual Mandatory Security Orientation. Guest instructors in "Chemical Corps" on "New Developments in CBR" which is classified secret, and in "Meat Merchandising" for the Commissary Open Class. No kidding. The soldiers are offered chain of command photographs of General Maxwell Taylor, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff and General Earle G. Wheeler, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army. There are parking regulations, bridge reminders (the game, not logistics), and the EM wives monthly meeting.

Oh, here's a good one: "BB Guns, Bows and Arrows:" (how long ago WAS 1963 anyway????) Turns out it's addressed to parents. "Increasing damage to windows of unoccupied buildings and light bulbs, together with the ever present danger of personal injury from the unsupervised use of BB guns and bows and arrows, indicates a lack of supervision on the part of parents and a non-compliance with Post Regulations."

And a few months later, what was going on in the real world? Good thing the kids were honing up on their BB guns and bows and arrows!

U.S. POLICY ON VIET-NAM: WHITE HOUSE STATEMENT, OCTOBER 2, 1963
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Secretary [of Defense Robert S.] McNamara and General [Maxwell D.] Taylor reported to the President this morning and to the National Security Council this afternoon. Their report included a number of classified findings and recommendations which will be the subject of further review and action. Their basic presentation was endorsed by all members of the Security Council and the following statement of United States policy was approved by the President on the basis of recommendations received from them and from Ambassador [Henry Cabot] Lodge.
1. The security of South Viet-Nam is a major interest of the United States as other free nations. We will adhere to our policy of working with the people and Government of South Viet-Nam to deny this country to communism and to suppress the externally stimulated and supported insurgency of the Viet Cong as promptly as possible. Effective performance in this undertaking is the central objective of our policy in South Viet-Nam.
2. The military program in South Viet-Nam has made progress and is sound in principle, though improvements are being energetically sought.
3. Major U.S. assistance in support of this military effort is needed only until the insurgency has been suppressed or until the national security forces of the Government of South Viet-Nam are capable of suppressing it.
Secretary McNamara and General Taylor reported their judgment that the major part of the U.S. military task can be completed by the end of 1965, although there may be a continuing requirement for a limited number of U.S. training personnel. They reported that by the end of this year, the U.S. program for training Vietnamese should have progressed to the point where 1,000 U.S. military personnel assigned to South Viet-Nam can be withdrawn.
4. The political situation in South Viet-Nam remains deeply serious. The United States has made clear its continuing opposition to any repressive actions in South Viet-Nam. While such actions have not yet significantly affected the military effort, they could do so in the future.
5. It remains the policy of the United States, in South Viet-Nam as in other parts of the world, to support the efforts of the people of that country to defeat aggression and to build a peaceful and free society.
By early l963, Washington was in a mood of euphoria about Vietnam.
Saigon Ambassador Frederick E. Nolting, Jr.(3)
We are now launched on a course from which there is no respectable turning back: the overthrow of the Diem government . . . . there is no turning back because there is no possibility, in my view, that the war can be won under a Diem administration.
Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, Jr., 29 August 1963(4)

And here we go with a brand new year, one more in a series in a brand new century. I'm still hung up on memories of years gone by, in the old century, still trying to figure out how I got from there to here, all the while realizing that I know exactly how I got here, and looking backwards, trying to imagine different paths, I can't. Imagine different paths, that is.

I know if I had married my first true love, I would not have stayed. I needed to experence other loves, other lovers. I didn't know the search would always be for the one I left. But I had to leave to find that out. But it's all right.

I know I could never have been responsible enough to stick with a career in public relations. I would always have foolishly flaunted unpopular political ideas enough to be uncompromisingly unprofessional. I would always have been an abject failure at office politics, preferring to spend my breaks smoking and reading alone. I would have been equally abject at university politics. I can't imagine narrowing my vision enough to even pick a doctoral thesis subject, not to mention researching and writing the damned thing. I find out late in life that I am probably seriously ADD, and have no wish to medicate myself into anything substantially different.

I'm hoping to finish the novel I started 20 years ago, and if I finish that one, perhaps I can write something else, but at least I will have finished something longer than a few paragraphs. My New Year's resolution is to devote three hours a day to writing - or at least to dealing with writing (re-reading, re-writing, thinking, that sort of thing). I did quit smoking three years ago (was it 3 years?), so I know I can stick to at least one thing at a time. I just have to steel myself to working in a dirty kitchen, knowing the back room is still a mess and the Christmas tree is still up. If I wait until all the work is done, it never will be.