Not a letter. A sheet of poems. I don't think I copied these. They are by Robert Burns (John Anderson, my jo, John), some Edwin Markham (He drew a circle that shut me out - heretic, rebel, a thing to flout. But love and I had the wit to win: We drew a circle that took him in!).

I wonder if that's why I kept taking in lost boys.

And a couple of others about fate and forgetting. One of them by Charles Hanson Towne, whoever he is, ending with: "'Here's a telegram, sir...' 'Jim died today.'"

They remind me of the deathless poetry written by Lisa Simpson some years ago, the meat of which I don't remember, but the refrain is stuck in my head forever. "They died. They died."

The last one - it's longish - I'll copy it out, because I just Googled it and the author is unknown. Deservedly so, I think. Such drivel - but it's the kind of thing to swell the hearts of young romantics and ruin their lives forever. Heh heh heh.

Two shall be born, the whole wide world apart,
And speak in different tongues and have no thought
Each of the other's being, and no head;
And these, o'er unknown seas, to unknown lands
Shall cross, escaping wreck, defying death;
And all unconciously shape every act
And bend each wandeering step to this one end -
That one day out of darkneww they shall meet
And read life's meaning in each other's eyes.

(and if that weren't bad enough - it goes on...)

And two shall walk some narrow way of life
So nearly side by side that, should one turn
Even so little space to left or right,
They needs must stand acknowledged, face to face,
And yet, with wistful eyes that never meet,
And groping hands that never clasp, and lips
Calling in vain to ears that never hear,
They seek each other all their weary days
And die unsatisfied - and this is fate."

And I, dear reader, am so resolved to bare my deepest, most shameful secrets that I reprint the thing here to reveal the awful fact that I must have, at one moment in my life, found this meaningful.

Thought I would post a couple of poems here - the ones sent to me by Judy and Robin 45 years ago. They have been living in my file cabinet for all that time, and should see the light of day. They are the poems of 17-year-olds about to graduate from high school But that was a time worth remembering:

Too fast - too fast.
Oh, please wait
You mustn't leave
Not now.
The sun has just risen and
Already the purple ebers of a dying day are visible
Rapidly creeping
The day's last light is fleeting
over the hill.
I trudge again.
Weary
So very weary
Disappointed
To face another Dawn.

Judy


Rain licked sun. Moistened
tongue on lollipops; each
drop a taste of lemon.

Robin

May 26-27, 1961 - even further back in the way back machine. This one dredged up a memory buried so deep there is even now only a sliver of a shard left.

It is from my friend Judy Stone, daughter of Pastor Al and Arletta Stone, late of Decatur, Illinois, who moved (accepted a call) to Seattle just before Judy's junior(?)senior(?)year.

"Dear Barbovitchiroffsloskyani," she begins. She and someone named Robin, who is a new friend in Seattle, and who writes me as well, but I do not remember her. They send me poetry. They tell me about events at Roosevelt - did she graduate from Roosevelt High School? She asks me to send her my class ring ("unless Hal has it") the minute I graduate, so she can wear it when she graduates, then she will send it right back. I think "Hal" had it.

"Hal" was my first fiancee'. He went to the high school across town. He was my "first." I think I was 17. That would put this event in 1960. I guess I began the 60's in a relevant way, but I was still in a 50's state of mind. When he asked me to marry him, I didn't know how to say no. During my first year of college, I sent the ring back. Yes, he bought a ring. And the jeweller he got it from gave Green Stamps. Anyone remember those? I kept the Green Stamps. Can't remember what I got. A sleeping bag comes to mind, but since I wasn't camping then, I don't know why I got one of those. I dumped more than one fiancee'.

However, at the time of this letter, Judy writes as if I am going to marry him and then "we" are moving to Seattle and he will get a job fishing in Alaska. And here I am at last. And my current housebuddy (not a lover) is a commercial fisherman. As are several more of my friends.

"Hal" joined the navy and became a pharmacist. There are stages in my life when he would have come in handy there as well.

My last contact with Judy was actually right here, in 1986. I had applied for a job at the Seattle Art Museum, and when I came for the interview, she was one of the people on the panel. It was a bad hair day. A very bad hair day. I was wearing borrowed clothes and shoes. I felt like a frump out of a bad 1940's movie. I kept thinking she was glaring at me. I kept thinking my mother had told her mother all about my divorces and my running off with a guy on a motorcycle years before and about my general failure as a life in general. I blew the interview. We said something about lunch sometime, but she never called and neither did I. It was a few years before I could get some good clothes and a haircut.

Now I can't find her. The Museum doesn't know where she is. But I'm ready now. We could do lunch.

A beautiful Christmas card from the future (or not, as it turned out) mother-in-law. Another one of those that fill me with a kind of regret. Regret for disappointing this very nice woman. There is an angel on the cover. She invites me for Christmas. I remember that Christmas. Not very well, actually, but I do remember being there, feeling a little lost among his family, not understanding that they all seemed to like me, that very fact making me nervous. Feeliing, as always, too skinny and unprepared for anything. I didn't know how to help out in the kitchen, for instance. I don't remember avoiding it, but I know I must have because I still do. I can finally function just fine in my own kitchen, but I'm all thumbs in anyone else's. I'm not a pitcher inner. My father interpreted that as lazy. So I am certain that they would have thought me lazy. In my mind, they would have, should have, thought me lazy. Because lazy people don't help out in the kitchen.

"You are welcome anytime. Come and stay as long as you like. I bet your folks have lots of plans for you too. But we will be happy to have you." My folks would have had plans, but not necessarily revolving around me. Even Larry noticed that, eventually. He couldn't understand it. He even wrote them a letter after I broke off the engagement, chiding them for doing nothing more when I left for college than decide who would get my room.

I remember bits and pieces of that Christmas. I remember getting up in the morning (from my separate bed) and going to Larry's room to cuddle with him for awhile. No sex. But cuddling. And I remember a liquor called Galliano. It was in a very tall bottle, beautiful bottle. I had never seen anything like it before. My parents were teetotalers. I don't drink the stuff, but now, whenever I see a bottle of Galliano, I remember that Christmas.

This is a ten-page letter written September 19, 1962. I can't possibly deal with most of the stuff in here, but then it's not so important that I do, I guess. There is, howwever, a bit of cultural relevance that I can address.

He writes about the proficiency tests he has to take, some of them physical - crawling through mud, throwing grenades, doing this, doing that, running a mile. If you fail any one of them, you are supposed to start over, but then he says that actually, very few have to be "recycled." "If you saw some of the obease (sic) and spstic 'soldiers' they push through down here, you too would see why the term selective service is indeed a misnomer."

Okay, that's just kinda interesting but not very. I know.

The part that interests me is this: "We are repeatedly told that this is serious business down here. We are reminded again and again of our purpose and our obligation. The other day we were told that we are at war!"

We are also a month away from the Cuban Missile Crisis. Could it be this to which the sergeant is referring? Or is it just as Larry continues: "No strong armed battle-front, and no great numbers of soldiers being shot. This is not necessary for war to be declared. What difference if the enemy shoots 12 or 123 people? Anyway, all this gives us a sense of apprehension, a feeling of urgency about our immediate future."

It's December, 1962. The letter serves to remind me why I thought I loved him. Maybe really did. Since he has been in my thoughts ever since. He does say something odd...

He has a pass for the weekend, and is "off to see Miles." That would be Miles Davis. He's in Fort Knox, KY (Larry, not Miles) so I have no idea where Miles would be playing. Remember, this is before civil rights really begins to get started. The south is still Jim Crow. Miles could be playing somewhere, but - hmmm...just Googled it. The page was missing, but the reference read: "I’d been listening in earnest to Miles Davis’ “Kind Of Blue’ sinking deeper and ... A few months passed, and then Miles came to town (Louisville, Kentucky). ..." Could it be the same show? Like I said, when I clicked on it, the page was gone.

Anyway, not so very strange then that he's going to see Miles in Kentucky. But that wasn't the strange part. The strange part was when he continued..."We get paid Friday so I will be busy after the concert, too - getting high."

Now, I do not recall any "getting high" going on at all. Did he mean drinking? Was there some kind of drug involved? Now that I think of it, I can almost remember something later on, in Chicago - but no, I think my neurons are confused and wanting to find something that isn't there. He must mean booze. He did like to drink. I don't mean like folks I knew later liked to drink. I mean like cocktail hour drinking. That was one big difference between his little Lutheran parents and mine. His drank. Cocktail hour drank. But could he have meant something else.....

I don't remember doing any drugs at all until I was over 30. I mean, drugs like marijuana and so forth and so on. The most high I got in those days was when I had cramps. Then I took Mydol. Mydol had benzidrine in it. I got fired once because I took too many on my lunch hour and came back still out to lunch. Too embarrassed to tell my boss that it was Mydol, I just said, "Oh, it's nothing. I just took a couple of bennies." Like I thought that would explain everything and be ok. No.

That's the Khumbu Ice Fall. And then there's the Western Cwm and the Lhotse Face. All Everest terms. I had to look it up, memory failing me, but as soon as I saw them, I recognized them almost as places I had been. I read every scrap of mountaineering that I could get my hands on when I was sixteen or so. It was my favorite form of reading, apart from Ayn Rand. Annapurna, K-2, Katchenjunga...I devoured books on them all. The north face of the Eiger. It was a flatlander's dream.

From climbing to cookies. Right now, I happy with cookies.

This morning's letter is from his mom. The fiancee's mom. So far as I know, she's still alive. He actually e-mailed me after my mother's death telling me that his father was gone, but that his mother was still there. He told me that he couldn't forgive his father for being the mean bastard that apparently he was, and was angry with his mother for continuing to stand up for him. I wrote back something about forgiving my own father, but he did not respond. I send him little reports once in a great while, hoping for a conversation at some point in time, but no longer expecting one. That one willl have to do.

The letter is a very loving one. She says she doesn't like the picture of him in his uniform. "He looks very unhappy in it. A real sober Puss." She had three or four sons, I believe. My fiancee' was the youngest of them. She loved them all very much, and it shines through in this letter. She would have been a great mother-in-law. I would have disappointed her.

I know how this sounds. But I am really not being as hard on myself as I seem to be. Were there things I wish I could have done differently? Not only here, but in many other times of my life? Of course there were. Do I realize that I didn't do them differently because I wasn't capable of another course of action at the time. Yes, I do. Do I regret the life I actually have had and still have? No, not at all. Like I said before, I think - these regrets of mine are simply (a) regrets that other people had to have been hurt because I was going through changes - but I have been hurt by other people's changes, so I hope it balances; and (b) that regret we all have that we could not have had our own life plus two or three others.

For instance, not only would I have like to have been able to marry this guy and have his mother for my mother-in-law and make eveybody happy, including myself, and eventually turn into Ina Garten. I would also like to have travelled the world and climbed Everest (I knew the route that Hillary and Tenzing Sherpa took by heart a month after they reached the top. I can still get all goose-bumply hearing the words "South Col," "Ice Fall," "Hillary Step." But I lived in Illinois. A high hill was about 25 feet. And the same uncertainty that prevented my marriage to Larry also prevented me from other adventures. And I no longer want to climb Everest. But I can make a mean Jam Thumbprint.