Letter from Ron: married a few months

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

March 13, 1987 .

Hi Dad, Hi Mom, hi Renata, Roger, Tom and Bob!

Apologies for the tardiness of my letter. I've been busy, and that always makes me a bit forgetful about correspondence. So I beg your pardon.

I'd like to start by letting you know how things are, psychologically speaking. (First, apologies for my tendency to mix printed and written words while writing. Just a bad habit.)

I've been maintaining my daily lithium dosages. When the prescription from Maryland ran out, a local pharmacist refilled it for me. He asked me to obtain a verification of the prescription from Dr. Iler before refilling again. I didn't, but he has since refilled again (my present vial of tablets). If you could get such a note from Dr. Iler and send it to me, it'd keep the pharmacist happy.

[continues in pencil]

Because I have been keeping to the schdule for using the stuff, I've had no bouts of depression at all. No bouts of mania, for that matter, beyond what you get when you drink too much coffee! So my spirits have been high. Even though my memory is quite shaky.

Next: the book. It has been ongoing through a couple changes as I gain more knowledge of and sympathy for, the loggers and their community. I've come to realize that I can't simply portray them as mindless bad guys and the environmentalists as perfect heroes.

So the work goes on, a page or so per day. Its hard work, believe it or not. Wish me luck.

Between my short jobs (cutting ferns in the woods, a delightful though not very highpaying occupation), picking flowers at the giant daffodil farm 10 miles from here, and delivering a shopper-type newspaper in neighboring Coquille, and sami's pay as a live-in nurse's aide, we're keeping the rent paid and some food on the table.

The car is running fine; a little hard to start in the morning, expecially when it rains. The building I'm in is tenanted only by old folks, so it's quiet. A young married couple may be moving into the building soon.

Marriage. It's funny. Nothing changes, but everything changes. A great deal of tension I hardly knew I was carrying has dropped from my shoulders. A sense of relief, really.

I'll be getting our wedding rings soon. Have to go 30 miles to Coos Bay, the nearest city, to get them. It was ridiculous not to have them at the civil ceremony, but I'd been assuming the nearby town jewewlry shops would have them (but they didn't!). So I hurried fashioned rings out of paper clips and braided myrtle leaves. They worked just fine. A funny heirloom to hand down the generations.

She understands me. There's no difficulty in communicating becuase we live more or less on the same wavelength. That's saying a lot. What I mean is, she easily assimilates concepts of mine.

[I can't believe I never mailed this letter! Sorry!]

So life is never boring out here. Sami has the gift of gab, and is full of endless anecdotes. Sometimes it is hard to shut her up!

We're starting with great hope a small community arts and gossip newspaper. Circulation only 100, first issue, but gotta start small. Wish us luck.

Oh, yes. As Samizu is the eldest child of a Japanese baron, I am inheriting the title upon her father's passing! Baron Huber, doesn't that sound good? The Japanese nobility lost most of its power a century ago, like the British and other European royal families, but I'll have some kind of land in Northern Japan, some peasants to rule, and ties to one of the more powerful families in Japan (economic, not political power).

Sayonara,

Ron

END