Again, Dangerous Visions Part 12

You try to explain it to yourself and your friends and those who have you fish-hooked with deadlines, and they won't believe you, because you've been arrogantly productive all your writing life. And you exist there all alone, trapped out on the edge of your mind; gone suddenly black and empty. It's not that you don't have ideas. Oh, h.e.l.l, you have thousands of those. You're as articulate, as clever, as facile as you ever were. You just don't want to work want to work. You stare at the machine and it's loathsome.

And then, one day, for no reason you can discern, it breaks. The Block vanishes and you start bamming the keys again.

And at that moment, ANDREW J. CAPITALS AND ALL d.a.m.nED OFFUTT, and all of you dainty dilettantes out there reading this, who think writing is something any any schlepp can do, remember the words of Hemingway, who said, "There are three conditions for becoming a writer. He must write today, he must write tomorrow, he must write the day after that..." schlepp can do, remember the words of Hemingway, who said, "There are three conditions for becoming a writer. He must write today, he must write tomorrow, he must write the day after that..."

offutt's a writer. He writes. As this story, at long last, attests.

FOR VALUE RECEIVED.

andrew j. offutt .

Mary Ann Barber, M.D., was graduated from medical school at the tender age of 23. Her Boards score set a new high. No, she isn't a genius. You don't know about her? Where've you been? There have been Hospital Board Meetings and Staff Meetings and even discussions of her case in the AMA and the AHA. Most important medical case in American history; frightening precedent. She's been written up, with pictures, in LIFE, LOOK, PARENTS, THE JOURNAL OF THE AMA, HOSPITAL NEWS, TODAY'S HEALTH, READER'S DIGEST-and FORTUNE. Her father has turned down movie offers. He's also been interviewed by THE INDEPENDENT, PSYCHOLOGY TODAY, RAMPARTS, THE OBJECTIVIST NEWSLETTER, and PLAYBOY.

It started twenty-three years ago when Robert S. Barber won a sales contest and received a very healthy company bonus. That was just before his wife Jodie was due to present him with their third child. Feeling expansive, Bob Barber suggested a private room for Jodie's confinement. She agreed, with enthusiasm. Last time she had shared a room with Philomena, a mother of nine. Philomena had complained constantly about the horror of being a breeding machine. Jodie told her to have faith-and stop. Philomena advised her that her Faith was the source of her problem.

Jodie entered the Saint Meinrad Medical Center in a room all to herself, rather than sharing one with another new mother in the American Way. The room cost ten dollars a day more than the money provided by the Barber's group hospitalization insurance; privacy's expensive! Nevertheless the ID card got them past the Warder of the Gates, a suspicious matron at the Admittance desk whose job it was to admit all patients impartially-provided they either possessed insurance ID cards or were visibly and provably dest.i.tute. There wasn't any middle ground.

The baby, a hairless girl-at least she showed certain evidences of insipidly incipient femalehood-was born with the usual number of arms, legs, fingers, etcetera after a brief period of labor. She proved with gusto the proper functioning of her lungs and larynx. She also took immediately to breast-feeding as if it were the normal method. She throve without seeming to realize that her infantile neighbors wouldn't recognize a mammary if they saw one.

Meanwhile the girls in the nursery went about their job: spoiling the infants entrusted to them by parents who had no choice and who would wonder in a few days how it was possible for a child to be born spoiled. The second part of the job of all hospital personnel involved, then as now, keeping the male of the species from both his chosen mate and the fruit of his loins. Robert Barber objected to this. Why his presence was forbidden while Jodie nursed the baby was beyond him. He'd seen 'em before. As a matter of fact he considered them his.

The nun he asked failed to reply.

Ostensibly, visiting hours were to protect the patients from disturbances in the form of Aunt Martha ("Yaas, I knew someone who had the selfsame operation, my dear. She died, poor soul.") and the like. But new mothers were not sick. It was obvious to Robert Barber that the prescribed hours-and the far greater number of proscribed ones-were for the convenience of a hospital staff whose mystique suffered from a surfeit of Commoners noticing their humanness. Naturally this a.s.sumption was strengthened by the fact that physicians, nurses, interns, residents, orderlies, Candy-Stripers, Gray Ladies, Pink Ladies, and the Lady pushing the cart peddling magazines and tissues disturbed the patients far more than "lay" visitors.

The inescapable prayers on the loudspeaker every night were rather disturbing, too.

But Robert Barber was a determined man. He had noticed that there were two kinds of people in hospitals, aside from the patients: Those Who Belong, and Others. The Others visited and indeed seemed to exist only by the sufferance of anyone who wore white shoes or a lab coat. Or carried a little black satchel. All one had to do, Bob Barber decided, was to act as if one Belonged.

So he adopted protective coloration. Carrying his black briefcase and striding purposefully, he traversed the hallowed and antiseptic halls.

"Good-evening-nurse," he said briskly, barely deigning to see the deferential girls who ducked respectfully out of his way. "Sister," he said to the nuns who were not quite so deferential: after all, doctor or no doctor, he was only a man, and a layman at that. But they nodded and rustled aside nevertheless.

Thus did the fiercely independent Bob Barber disregard Visiting Hours for four days running.

The fateful day arrived without portentous occurrence in the skies. Jodie Barber was p.r.o.nounced ready to go home by a duly authorized member of the American Magicians a.s.sociation. Thanking the kindly old AMA shaman-priest, Bob went down to settle with the cashier. She ruled a smallish domain separated from the world by a counter-c.u.m-window that reminded him of a bank. She regarded him with the usual expression: as if he had committed a crime.

He had not.

He was about to.

"You seem to have placed your wife in a better room than your hospitalization covers, Mister Barber." Her tone was the same you've heard in movies when the prosecutor says, "Then you were indeed at or near the scene of the crime on the night of March 21st!"

Bob Barber smiled and nodded. "Yes. I should owe you about forty dollars, right?"

She nodded wordlessly, giving him an exemplary imitation of the gaze of the legendary basilisk.

Frowning a little, wondering if it were a communicable disease, Robert Barber also nodded, again. "Uh, well..."

"Would-you-like-to-pay-the-balance-by-cash-or-check, Mister Barber?"

He hesitated, he told an interviewer years later, waiting for the words THIS IS A RECORDING. He had recognized good salesmanship; the room was "better," not "more costly" than his insurance covered. Now he'd been given the standard "fatal choice": cash or check. "Send me a bill, please. You have my address."

"Mister Barber, our policy is that all bills are handled upon the release of the patient."

He remarked on that word "handled" later, too. Not "paid." She had had taken a course in salesmanship/semantics! "Yes, well, you've got $237.26 coming from the hospitalization and $40 from me. Just send me a bill at the end of the month like everyone else, will you?" taken a course in salesmanship/semantics! "Yes, well, you've got $237.26 coming from the hospitalization and $40 from me. Just send me a bill at the end of the month like everyone else, will you?"

His smile failed to bring one in return. "We have a policy, Mister Barber, of not dismissing the patient until the bill has been settled in full."

"We've got an out then, ma'm. My wife isn't a patient here. We merely came here because it's a more convenient place for our doctor to watch the baby being born. Now...my car is back by the Emergency Door, and my wife's all packed." He gave her his very best boyish smile. "Am I supposed to sign something?"

It didn't work. She sighed. "Mister Barber, you just don't seem to understand. It's a rule rule, Mister Barber. A hospital hospital rule. We cannot dismiss the patient until the bill has been settled." rule. We cannot dismiss the patient until the bill has been settled."

Bob Barber shoved his hands into his trousers pockets and squared his shoulders. She not only hadn't a cerebral cortex, he thought, she was missing her ovaries and needed a heart transplant! He firmed his mouth. "OK," he said. "If you must keep hostages, that's your business. But I'm sure one will do. Mrs. Barber and I are leaving in a few minutes. We are nursing the baby, so my wife will be coming back six times daily. The baby's name is Mary Ann, by the way." He smiled in his confidence, enjoying her shocked look. "When she's big enough to go to college we'll send you the tuition money." He grinned and waited for the backdown. He was without doubt the first man in history to call her bluff.

When Mary Ann Barber was six years old her father picked her up at the hospital each day to transport her to school. Each Friday she brought him a bill. It had pa.s.sed $9,000 when she was partly through the first grade.

She entered the tenth grade at age fourteen. On her fourth day as a Junior, she handed her daddy a bill for $106,378.23. She was one of the brightest girls in high school, and one of the healthiest. She had absorbed a tremendous amount of knowledge and sophistication, talking with interns. And it was easy to remain healthy, living in a hospital.

She had been moved from Nursery to Pediatrics to Children's Ward to Second Floor. Then the interns had doubled up to make her a gift: a private room away from the patients. Her parents visited her twice daily, usually. At visiting hours.

There were the Staff and Board Meetings, the magazine and newspaper articles, the interviews. Offers to pay Mary Ann Barber's daily-increasing bill had come from all over the country, as well as from seventeen foreign nations and the governments of two. The hospital had offered to settle for ninety cents on the dollar. Then seventy-five. Fifty cents. Forty. Bob Barber said he was holding out for the same terms the Feds had given James Hoffa.

On her fourteenth birthday Mary Ann received one thousand, two hundred seventy-one cards. Shortly thereafter she received 1,314 Christmas cards. Her clothing came from one manufacturer, her shoes from another, her school books from two others. Her tuition arrived anonymously each year. Bob Barber solemnly invested it in an insurance annuity in his daughter's name. Most of the clothing she never wore; the parochial school she attended required s.e.xless, characterless uniforms of navy-blue jumpers over white blouses. And black shoes. And white socks, rolled just to here.

She was graduated from college at nineteen and entered medical school at once. The doctors had won; the nuns had tried to sell her on the convent, the nurses on being an airline stewardess or secret agent. Mary Ann was far too fond of interns.

On his daughter's twenty-first birthday Robert Barber received his now-monthly itemized bill. It was thirty-seven feet long, neatly typed by the hated machine he called an Iron Brain, Malefic. The bill totalled $364,311.41, very little of which was for anything other than room and board. The discount had been applied and figured for him as usual, although this time he noticed he was asked for only twenty cents on the dollar. Still, $72,862.28 was more than he had available. He sent the usual note: I agreed to forward the forty dollars outstanding on my daughter's bill at the end of the month of her birth. When the bill arrived it was for $130, including ten days at $9 for Nursery Care. I returned it, requesting a corrected total of $40. Had you responded I would have had a daughter all these years, like other people. You chose to advise that I owed you for the time she spent in the hospital past the day I took my wife home. I disagreed then and I disagree today; those additional ten days were spent in your inst.i.tution at your request, not mine. And not hers. Thus, since you claim to be a non-profit organization and the courts have refused to uphold me in prosecuting for kidnap-at-ransom, I am still willing to pay the $40. However I cannot do this until I receive a proper bill for that amount, so that I can account for it on my income tax return.

-Robert S. Barber PS: The enclosed check is to cover all expenses for my daughter's recent tonsillectomy. Actually, had I had a choice I would have chosen another hospital providing better care, but she advises your service was satisfactory.

-RSB.

It was signed, as usual, with a flourish. You can see for yourself; the hospital threw away the first few, but they have a file of 243 of those letters. Two hundred thirty-seven of them are printed.

There was another Board Meeting. The vote still went against bowing to Barber's request for a total bill of $40, although Board members calculated that the bookkeeping had cost them $27.38 a year. But-in the first place, What Would People Think if they learned hospitals are fallible, and admit errors? In the second, Eli R. Hutchinson, president of the biggest bank in town and a board member for thirty-six years, absolutely refused to agree to the $40 settlement unless it included interest. Simple interest on the original amount came to $50.40. Barber had rejected that six years ago.

As they left the Board Meeting William Joseph Spaninger, MD, was heard to mutter to Sister Mary Joseph, OP, RN, "Well, Hutch can't live forever."

Sister Mary Joseph shook her head and rattled her beads. "You're a sinful man, Doctor Spaninger. Besides, Mister Hutchinson had a complete physical last week. He's in ridiculously good health."

Mary Ann Barber, as noted, graduated from Med School at 23 and made an extraordinary grade on her Boards. By that time she had turned down seven offers from six magazines to be photographed as their Nubile Young (semi) Nude (semi) Virgin of the month; three major studios who wanted to film her life story-two with herself in the starring role; seven hundred twenty-four written, wired, and cabled offers of matrimony, and six offers of the same from fellow medical students. There were other offers, most of them from fellow med students, most of them less formal.

Special arrangements were made for her to intern at home: Saint Meinrad Medical Center. The interns are salaried at exactly one hundred twenty dollars monthly. Doctor M. A. Barber began on the first of September.

At exactly midnight on the tenth she moved her possessions out of the hospital and just as quietly moved into a long-empty room at her parents' home. At two AM she returned to the hospital to go on duty.

Her departure was discovered at 8:30, while she was a.s.sisting-medicalese for watching-Doctor Spaninger perform a Pilonidal Cystectomy on a nineteen-year-old college student. Dr. Spaninger glanced up at the frantically-signaling nun in the doorway, then looked at Doctor Barber. Her eyes smiled at him above her mask. He shook his head at the nun and pulled his brows down at her as ferociously as possible. Doctor Mary Ann Barber smiled sweetly at her.

"What's she want?" Dr. Spaninger asked as they smoked a cigaret in the Physicians' Lounge after what he called a Tailectomy. He was very popular among nurses, residents, and interns, who called him the nearest-human doctor in town.

"Probably discovered I moved out last night. At midnight."

"Moved out of the hospital? My G.o.d, girl! You've run away from home!"

She shook her very blonde hair. "No doctor. I moved to to home. It's quite a lovely room, although it certainly home. It's quite a lovely room, although it certainly smells smells odd." odd."

He nodded. "That's air. O2 and some other stuff, nitrogen, hydrogen; you know. No antiseptics. No medicines. Possibly a little chintz, and some mothb.a.l.l.s. Take some getting used to, I guess." He gazed at her, brows down. "But you're a and some other stuff, nitrogen, hydrogen; you know. No antiseptics. No medicines. Possibly a little chintz, and some mothb.a.l.l.s. Take some getting used to, I guess." He gazed at her, brows down. "But you're a...resident here. A resident resident, I mean, not a medical one. Let's don't go into it; I've been on the d.a.m.ned Hospital Board twenty years, and I've been living with the infamous Barber case all twenty of 'em. You can't leave. You have a h.e.l.l of a bill here. Or your irascible, independent, atavistic, heroic old s...o...b.. of a father does." here. A resident resident, I mean, not a medical one. Let's don't go into it; I've been on the d.a.m.ned Hospital Board twenty years, and I've been living with the infamous Barber case all twenty of 'em. You can't leave. You have a h.e.l.l of a bill here. Or your irascible, independent, atavistic, heroic old s...o...b.. of a father does."

She pulled off the surgery cap and her hair flew as she shook her head with a very bright smile. "Nope. He doesn't. I signed some papers a.s.suming all my own bills, debts, etcetera etcetera the day I turned twenty-one. I'm his daughter, you know; I agree with him. He didn't much like that, but I used the word 'independent' and he shut up pretty fast. That's Sacrament at his-my house. Then I told him my plan. That really really shut him up, after he stopped laughing." shut him up, after he stopped laughing."

Dr. Spaninger waited. Then he sighed, looked at his watch, and leaned back, lighting another cigaret. She also had a cigaret out; he pushed the lighter back into his pocket.

"Don't play woman with me, Doctor," he said. "You're much too independent, competent and professional for me to insult you by lighting your cigaret. Besides, I've diapered you a few times. Never sent a bill, either." He watched a snake of smoke writhe up to the ceiling. "All right Mary Ann, I'll bite. What's your Plan?"

"Was. It's completed. I started here on the first of September, at $120 a month. September hath thirty days. That's four whole U.S. rasbuckniks a day."

"Um-hm. Shameful. We do everything we can to keep you yunkers out of the profession, including starve you out."

"We won't go into that either, overworked but wealthy old physician. Well, as of midnight last night I had worked ten days. That's forty dollars worth. I moved out. And left a note at the desk; I'm to receive only eighty dollars this month. We're even."

He leaned back and laughed. Loudly. Long. Eventually he grew rather red in the face and leaned over to slap his knee. His concerned young ward warned him about his blood pressure. He nodded, gasping and choking.

"Wait till they hear THIS! Wait'll Eli Hutch hears this! Oh, wonderful! We're shut of the Barber case at last!" He looked at her and frowned again. "Unless the rest of the Board decides to sue you...hm. I'll take care of that in advance advance. The only Barber I want to hear about hereafter is Doctor Barber. I hope I never hear the name Robert S. Barber again!"

"That's not very charitable, but Daddy and I are opposed to charity anyhow. I promise you this: my son won't be named Rober-what you said. He will be named William Robert Joseph Barber, OK?"

Dr. William Joseph Spaninger stared at her. "What...son?"

She shrugged. "Oh, the one I'll eventually have. I'm trying to decide now which of my fellow interns is the most promising-looking." She smiled at him. "No, I will not not be an OB patient any ways soon. Not till I've finished up here, anyhow. And probably not till after I'm married." be an OB patient any ways soon. Not till I've finished up here, anyhow. And probably not till after I'm married."

"Thank G.o.d. But that's a dang lie-you're stuck on young Chris Andrews and you know it." He studied her thoughtfully. "Well. How the devil do you plan to exist on eighty bucks this month?"

"I won't have to. I am receiving forty dollars from Daddy. He says the bill was his responsibility, anyhow. We accept our responsibilities in my family."

Dr. Spaninger waved a hand at the hospital. "Nonsense. This is your family, and I haven't found two people here willing to accept responsibility in the past twenty years. And I hope you will allow me, as a token of an old girl-watcher's admiration for a very good-looking one, to give you a check for exactly $40 for your birthday. Your father's giving you the forty sounds suspiciously like charity, and I really hate to see the old bas-rascal start changing, now. He's a great man. Just for G.o.d's sake don't ever tell him so. And...carry on his work."

"I intend to. I'll spend the rest of my life bucking the System and marking 'PLEASE' in all those nasty DO NOT WRITE IN THIS s.p.a.cE blocks and punching extra holes in computer cards. But he's a greater man than you think, O Revered Father-image. I said I was receiving receiving the money from him, Doctor. I did the money from him, Doctor. I did not not say anything about charity. It's a business arrangement; Daddy pays only for value received. For the duration of the month, on my hours off-duty from here, I'm on KP at home." say anything about charity. It's a business arrangement; Daddy pays only for value received. For the duration of the month, on my hours off-duty from here, I'm on KP at home."

Afterword.

This one wasn't too dangerous because it will probably happen. Only the IR (I do not call them "service" because I do not lie) people are more arrogant than hospital exchequers. They have to be; it's amazing how much costs have risen since free Medicare came along. If it paid all all the bill for those people who are now going in hospital for rests, your tax bill and mine would be even worse. Since it doesn't, we have to pay for them when we're hospitalized, just like everything at the grocery is a penny or 3 higher because you and I help defray the cost of shoplifters. the bill for those people who are now going in hospital for rests, your tax bill and mine would be even worse. Since it doesn't, we have to pay for them when we're hospitalized, just like everything at the grocery is a penny or 3 higher because you and I help defray the cost of shoplifters.

Besides, "For Value Received" is half-true. Down to the break, when Bob Barber calls the hospital's bluff. Bob Barber is me. Jodie is my wife. Mary Ann is my daughter Scotty. I wanted to visit my wife when I I wanted to, not when it was convenient for the hospitaleers. So I carried a black bag, acted brusque and Belonging, and was naturally mistaken for a member of the American Magicians' a.s.sociation: AMA. The creature at the desk said everything to me the one in the story does. I owed a lousy forty bucks, and was not accustomed to being treated as if I were at a world sf convention or something. So I called her bluff. I said wanted to, not when it was convenient for the hospitaleers. So I carried a black bag, acted brusque and Belonging, and was naturally mistaken for a member of the American Magicians' a.s.sociation: AMA. The creature at the desk said everything to me the one in the story does. I owed a lousy forty bucks, and was not accustomed to being treated as if I were at a world sf convention or something. So I called her bluff. I said exactly exactly what Mary Ann's dad says in the story. After staring at me in shocked silence, she backed apoplectically away and went into a little opaque-gla.s.s cubicle. (Just like the guy at the car lot. You know; he what Mary Ann's dad says in the story. After staring at me in shocked silence, she backed apoplectically away and went into a little opaque-gla.s.s cubicle. (Just like the guy at the car lot. You know; he always always has to go ask the boss if he can let you have the cigaret lighter for only $9.95 instead of $10.00.) has to go ask the boss if he can let you have the cigaret lighter for only $9.95 instead of $10.00.) I waited. A black-bonneted head came out. Looked me over. I was in Uniform: suit, shirt, tie. Only a fool wears anything else at hospital check-out desks or in traffic court. Head withdrew. The Creature returned. I was let off; all she wanted was name and address and phone number, which she already had. Checking. I started to go, once again having won a Great Victory over an Established Faith (did Harlan tell you about how I got the tax people off my back by writing The President?).

"Uh...Mister offutt...you WILL pay this, won't you?"

I swear. I gave her my best don't-you-wish-you-knew-who-your-father-was look and departed. With wife and offutt-spring.

That became one of our three favorite stories to tell captive audiences dumb enough to beholden themselves by coming out to drink my liquor. (The other two are how-andy-scared-off-the-prowler-with-a-Daisy-air-rifle-while-scared-to-death-the-bb's-would-rattle, and how-andy-d.a.m.near-chopped-off-his-left-thumb-with-a-machete-while-cutting-weeds-and-thank-Mithra-he-types-with-only-the-index-finger-on-that-hand-anyhow.) Come out for a drink and we'll tell you. If you mix with 7-up or cola, you get cheap Ky bourbon. If you drink it bare, or with water or soda, you'll get Maker's Mark and the stories will be painless.

Anyhow, one night we told our friend Bill Hough the hospital story and he didn't laugh and beam at me as if I were G.o.d. Before I could s.n.a.t.c.h his drink and throw him out, he said: "Ever think what might've happened if they'd called your bluff back? back?"

I gave Bill another drink and wrote the story next day. It was turned down by Redbook, Satevepost Redbook, Satevepost (which immediately went bust), (which immediately went bust), Atlantic, Good House Atlantic, Good House, and the agent agent I had at that time! Here's what he said: I had at that time! Here's what he said: "I'm sorry but-and I don't believe 'For Value Received' would make it. It has humor and truth to a point, but it's against the rules to spoof the medical profession...."

So, obviously, this IS a dangerous vision. To dwarfs, anyhow. We're surrounded by them.

Introduction to MATHOMS FROM THE TIME CLOSET.

Gene Wolfe is a quiet, mostly amiable man with a sense of humor that has all the gentility of a carnivorous plant. I like and admire him more than I've ever told him. He is the author of a so-so novel, Operation Ares Operation Ares, and a horde of short stories that are well into the category labeled brilliant. He lives on Betty Drive in Hamilton, Ohio, the state from which I came; and when I left, Ohio got Gene, as the act of a benevolent G.o.d.

During the 1971 Nebula awards in New York, I sat in front of Gene during one of the most painful incidents it has ever been my gut-wrench to witness, and the way Gene reacted to it says much about the man.

Isaac Asimov had been pressed into service at the last moment to read the winners of the Nebulas. Gene was up in the short story category for his extravagantly excellent "The Island of Doctor Death And Other Stories" from Damon Knight's...o...b..T 7 (Gene has appeared nine times in the eight ORBIT collections as of this writing) (thereby attesting to Damon's perspicacity as an editor) (taught the kid everything he knows, except table manners at banquets) (he throws peanuts and peas). Isaac had not been given sufficient time to study the list, which was handwritten, and he announced Gene as the winner. Gene stood up as the SFWA officers on the platform went pale and hurriedly whispered words to Ike. Ike went pale. Then he announced he'd made an error. There was "no award" in the short story category. Gene sat back down and smiled faintly.

Around him everyone felt the rollercoaster nausea of stomachs dropping out backsides. Had it been me, I would have fainted or screamed or punched Norbert Slepyan of Scribner's, who was sitting next to me. Gene Wolfe just smiled faintly and tried to make us all feel at ease by a shrug and a gentle nod of his head.

His three short stories in this book mark a departure in my DV policies: when I started a.s.sembling stories, I said no one writer would have more than a single story in the series. One shot and that was it. But I bought "Loco Parentis" in 1968, one of my first purchases, at the Milford SF Writers Conference, and the following year when the Conference was held in Madeira Beach, Gene showed up with "Robot's Story" and "Against the Lafayette Escadrille," neither of which I could resist. So I bought all three and Gene devised an umbrella overt.i.tle for the group, and it subsequently allowed Bernard Wolfe and James Sallis to sell me more than one. There is simply no defense against a Gene Wolfe story.

For me, his is one of the wildest and richest imaginations in the genre.

Here is what he says of himself: "The usual middle cla.s.s upbringing for kids born, as I was, in the worst of the depression. No brothers or sisters, the family moving around as my father tried to earn a living. (Mostly, he was trying to sell cash registers, G.o.d help him.) He was a man who was home only on weekends, and brought me one or two lead soldiers every time he came, until I had a corrugated board box of them so heavy I could not pick it up. If we're so much richer now, why can't you buy those lead soldiers anymore?

"My mother was from the deep south (North Carolina) descended through her her mother from one of those real Scarlett O'Hara families that lost it all in the Civil War. (Oddly enough, my father's family also had roots in North Carolina, having come from there north about 1830, and I may be distantly related to Thomas Wolfe.) I remember her taking me to be shown to her parents, and how no one would explain why Grandfather kept those funny chickens that could not be let in with the regular chickens ("Or they'll kill 'em!") or the scarred white dog which had to be chained up when there were other dogs around. Grandfather had a wooden leg he kept out in front of him and was as deaf as a stump when he didn't want to hear you; I wish I could have known him better. mother from one of those real Scarlett O'Hara families that lost it all in the Civil War. (Oddly enough, my father's family also had roots in North Carolina, having come from there north about 1830, and I may be distantly related to Thomas Wolfe.) I remember her taking me to be shown to her parents, and how no one would explain why Grandfather kept those funny chickens that could not be let in with the regular chickens ("Or they'll kill 'em!") or the scarred white dog which had to be chained up when there were other dogs around. Grandfather had a wooden leg he kept out in front of him and was as deaf as a stump when he didn't want to hear you; I wish I could have known him better.

"Something must have happened during my school days, but I mostly remember that it was very hot. I am left-handed, and the chairs had their broad arm on the wrong side. My hands were always sweating and sticking to the paper. I remember that. must have happened during my school days, but I mostly remember that it was very hot. I am left-handed, and the chairs had their broad arm on the wrong side. My hands were always sweating and sticking to the paper. I remember that.

"The sports for which I showed some ability, boxing and shooting, were unimportant beside such necessities as basketball. I was good at baseball, except for the parts which involve catching or throwing the ball. In Junior High I acquired a distaste for compulsory athletics which has never deserted me.