=au05021i
Being the 3rd unread doc in Steve's 2md Autobiogarphy
The which being preceeded by =au050217.txt and then =au05021g.txt
And this being insribe'd on 18 February '05, that being 8 Adar A
Another cold day in Campra, betwixt the sunless mountains
------------------------------------------------------------------

Our discussion of Steve's neighbors on the Moshav continues, in
the fervent hope that they will never read this, of which there is
little fear, the most being illiterate except Alifa who reads
books when all good Christians or whatever we are should be
studying the halachot of advanced schnias with a reputable Rabbi.

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


JUDY is or was his best friend, despite being married to his next-
door neighbor.  As noted, she paints nice landscapes, in water-
colour and sometimes oil.  She has borne 4 daughters and a son,
all lovely young people.  To eat a Shabat meal in their home is
rather like listening to Bach -- dull, but calming.  A strict home
no doubt, but behind that a real sense of the coherence of the
universe.  The yard is immaculately raked, with a variety of
plants that it is said can barely be found anywhere else in
Israel.  HAI disapproves of grassy lawns in Israel, I suppose he
considers them just one more mark of English imperialism.  He is
one of the last and maybe foremost representatives of the Jewish
community of Chochin, India.  To hear him lead davening is a
comfort, and to hear him leyn tora a pleasure.  Roosters run loose
in the yard, and keep the days in place.  Hens too run loose,
hiding their young under their wings when need be.  There is a dog
and a few cats, all co-existing.  That is not something one often
sees, it does take several generations, of cat and dog anyhow.
Judy is administrative secretary for a group that offers charity
to victims of Palestinian terror attatcks.  Every so often some
group, no doubt run and funded from Iran Iraq or Syria, feels an
unbearable need to avenge the oppression and humiliation of
western imperialist occupation -- and by Jews, of all things, not
even by Romans Ottomans Mamalukes or Brits, as was traditional --
by blowing up a municipal bus filled with worshipers shoppers and
the like.  A few Jews are killed, a nice butcher-shop lot of arms
and legs left on the street, and a large number left to walk
around for the rest of their lives with the odd nut bolt or screw
somewhere embedded, and of course a bit of psychologic shock, but
its all worth it to bring about a Palestinian state and then we
will all live in the Garden of Eden, or so it says on CNN.
So half the time Judy is running around or at least writing around
like a chicken with her head cut off, trying to pick up all that
mess.                                                            

Next to Judy is Steve's former residence, 103,  now used a puton,
a place to park the kids during the day.  Mostly the kids are
glued to the TV cartoons, tho what that does to their malleable
little minds who dares imagine.
Steve had once fixed up that house, to the point of putting in a
nice shower massager in case a chick walked by in need of a bed,
as so often happened in the good old days, "'but that was in
another country'".  Then he went away for the summer to elevate
his soul in foreign lands, and they took back the house, and
somehow killed all the grass that was growing there, although they
do now maintain a bit of a vegetable garden.   

Next to 103 is 104.  At last notice, which is August '04, it had
for several years been the little hidey-hole of a spy.  The spy
had been sent in to run the Moshav, but was said to have spied on
the natives, apparently fired, but never left, and sits there, or
did, with no known utiliiies but a place to pee outside his front
door, which is opposite the House of Prayer.  He arrives at the
end of day and departs in early morning, never crossing the street
to the Bet Knesset.  His van is backed up to the front door so
that he can duck inside without risking -- who knows what, but
several years ago some of the rowdy youth broke a few of his
windows, perhaps because he never pays rent and is said to have
been a spy, which is not done, it says so in the prayer book, more
or less.
The Moshav is confronting this problem, since it restricts the
rentable property, by demanding that Steve pay a bribe of 10,000
shekels or dollars or something or leave.
                  
Next to 104 is 105, part of the Gal-Or Empire.  After bearing him
more kids that I can count on my fingers, and almost all by
Caeserian section, and the last a great ordeal and achievement,
Eliahu's wife divorced him.  He had already moved his mother in
there, with half his used computers, so he just added himself,
barely noticeable amidst the clutter.  Eliahu is always remodeling
half-way, but rarely finishes anything, so his dwellings may be
recognized by little piles of rubble and large piles of technical
junk.
He seems to be an excellent cook with an exceptional palate, for
both foods and liquors.  So when he can buy or pick the
appropriate ingredients, his fare is well-worth sampling.
If anyone would be worth subsidizing it would be Eliahu, but only
with a money-manager for he spends like a prince and then lives
like a pauper.
Lately he seems to have given over that plot and place to one of
his sons, who came out of an elite unit in the army in such state
that I would not like to see him holding a weapon, and was at last
count refurbishing a gutted caravan, very slowly.

Next to 105 is 106, which is Yoram, an innocuous convert who
really should be given a free passage back to Sweden and
reinstated in the Christian Kingdom, for it is not clear what
Judaism means to him.  I mean, some conversions stick, some don't. 
It is said that all true converts were with us at Mt. Sinai, but
nobody knows who the true converts are.  "By their fruits shall ye
know them," said a famous Jewish reform Rabbi.

Next to 106 is 107, Bet Klavim, Yehudit Israel, rather a horror of
an old maid, tho no doubt with a good heart somewhere.  A convert
from Flanders, tho here too it is not quite clear what she
convertd too.  Used to poison cats, but now merely keeps a few
savage dogs and a few bored donkeys all penned up so nobody will
steal them.

Then there is Yohevet, of whom I have spoken.  She sits in a
corner house, almost hidden by the most beautiful fig tree
imaginable.  Very quiet, very neat, the house seems immaculately
neat.  Works as administrative secretary in a Jerusalem group that
tries to advance the socio-economic empowerment of the lower
class.  Patterned after Tom Hayden's Newwark Project I'd guess.  A
very powerful, very intelligent person, both of which qualities
she keeps veiled when not needed.  That she is black -- for she
surely looks an African type, even though from St. Croix (the
landed aristocracy, i gather) via Manhattan -- is no handicap in
Israel, indeed it is something of a useful wild-card, which she
plays well.  I have seen practically no racial prejudice in
Israel, but neither is their the facade of homogenization that one
finds in the USA.  On the contrary to both, Israelis, leading a
rather confined life, are intriguied by anything exotic, including
non-white Jews.  It is an open, almost childish curiousity,
without denigration.  Culturally Yohevet is a Scrabble player --
reserved but straightforward, no poses that I've seen.

She was married to Michael ben Shmuel, who used to hang out with
the Bedouin who used to tent behind Modi'in.  The first time I saw
ben Shmuel, who was down in the bottom of a deep dry well.  He had
rappelled down on a rope secured only under the tire of a car. 
Some guy had fallen down there, and ben Shmuel, who was then
qualified as an EMT, had gone down to try to give first aid while
waiting for the ambulance.
When I needed a place to sit shiva, it was they who offered me
their floor.  I was in a Sar-El program at the time.
This is the sort of human kindness that one does not forget.
When I left the base and came to the Moshav, having no other place
in Israel that I might call home, someone with smicha said, with
comfortable well-educated well-fed politeness, we are not obliged
to offer a place for shiva.  One does not forget that either,
though no doubt one should.
When I returned from the USA I gave Kochava a little home-made
telescope, since her name is "star", and Ma'ayan a little carved
wood train set made by some spiritual group.

And then there is Shoshana's Pizza Parlour, formerly Luciano's
Gourmet Al Fresco Napolianian Restaurant.  Eliahu is exiled fromit
now, and the pizza is at best fully cooked.  With Eliahu, you
could get fresh-picked capers, from behind the Moshav.  Sometimes
Eliahu sneaks in, and then Yitzhak and I drop by and drink his
espresso and drink whatever we can and sling the bull with vigour,
for Eliahu can be a fine raconteur and all that.  And then, having
made a suitable dent in Shoshana's weekly profits, we wander out
half-drunk, while Eliahu, somewhat more so, knocks down a wall or
too in the interests of remodeling, or (more likely by far)
repairs something electronical that nobody else in the world would
even pretend to repair for less than a few hundred dollars.
Shoshana seems to be going through her adolescent phase, with
gentleman companions who are at best a crashing bore and at worst
a well-contained psycopath who seemed to me to be a CIA reject. 
He had that eye for the odd bit of information.

Well, its 10 below and windy, tho not insanely so like yesterday. 
Sunny, wherever the sun shines.  Scored a lukewarm cappucino -- no
pretence of the froth or chocolate today, but who needs either --
and two rubber croissantes from Honest George; that will more or
less have to do until lunchtime.  Parking lot filled with cars,
tho I don't know where the humans are.  A bit cold and windy to be
out on what passes here for piste.

So next to Shoshana's Pizza Parlour is Ben-Zion's stuido.  Once it
was the Bet Medrash, but he took it over.  Half is still an unused
Bet Medrash, filled with moulding books, noting new.
The fact is its darned hard to find much to read in English in
religous Judaism in the Bet Knesset, or any other public location
(whatever those may be -- someone was going to make a nice secular
library, but the Moshav never reimbursed her and she more or less
put the whole thing on hold, or so it was when I left last August. 
I tried to steal whatever I could from it, including a few hooks
that I'd donated, some of which belonged to Eliahu).

Anyhow, Ben-ZIon is a real musician and a real scholar of Jewish
music.  He got a degree in musicology from UC Berkeley long ago, a
Master's I think.  A decent guy and very honest, that's obvious
from the rundown space he works in, and the only addition to his
house is a shack out back.
It was he and Dinah, his wife, who took me in when I wandered back
in rags after a month in the Modi'in woods preceeded by several
months in some sort of Greek jail or holding facility for would-be
deportees, from which they sent me with only the clothes I had on,
though I had not been especially co-operative there, tho neither
had they.  On the airplane, which was El-Al, the young women,
scarcely more than girls, who served as cabin attendants loaded me
up with food and an airline blanket, maybe it had been issued to
one of themn.  Well, that's Israeli security for you, they can
take one glance, exchange a few words, and accept you as family.
I was accompanied by two thugs from the Greek secret police or
some such, who I reckoned were going to kidnap me to Istanbul, but
then, I was substantially less than rational at the time.  Anyhow,
I passed quickly through the checkpoint for anyone with an Israeli
passport -- they had taken me out on it -- and just walked out the
door, out of the airport, and then into the brush, where I stayed
for a few days eating overripe persimmons, which are deliciously
sweet.  Then I walked into the Modi'in woods and more or less
stayed there for a month or so, eating out of traschcans,
especially after picnicers left, and sleeping in the little
playground shelters.  A few times some old Arab guy came by on his
donkey, gathering brush, I suppose he worked for the JNF, which
maintains the forest, and mroe or less said to be, what are you
doing here, why don't you go home.  So one rainy day, at the end
of a rainy week, I decided I couldn't take any more, and walked in
the gate of Modi'in.  By chance it was the eveing of some sort of
youth festival.  Eliezar, the Radbash, saw me and said, 'Bo
shnia', come here a minute buddy.  He said, Mi Atah, who are you.
I said Steve.  He said, Steve, in a sort of tone of bewonderment. 
So he didn't not arrest me, which he could have done.  He asked me
what I doing there, and I said, to see Gal-Or, and he accepted
that.  So it is really to Eliezar that I owe my freedom and
rehabilitation, a man with less soul would have had me locked up.
So I wandered over toward the pizza parlour, but mistook it for
Ben-Zion's concrete shack, and just sat outside outside there,
ashamed to knock on anyone's door, and then Dinah appeared and I
think recognized me -- after concluding, with disappointment no
doubt, that I was not after all Eliahu haNavi -- Jewish tradition
is very strong on the point that when Eliahu haNavi appears, to
announce the advent of the Messiah, he will appear as the lowest
of beggars -- which I suppose is a way of saying, never forget to
honor even the lowest of beggars -- 
Well, Judaism can move you to tears with its nobility, whatever
the Chistians think and say and write -- 
So Ben-Zion comes out, and prevails upon me to come into their
house, which is still just a simple concrete 2 or 3  room, for all
their children, and I don't even want to sit down because some of
the drapings and weavings she has are so beautiful, and I am about
as dirty as a bum can be -- etc. -- so they prevail upon me to
wash, and give me clean clothes, and Eliahu appears and offers me
lodging in his house, the which one enters by the window over a
pile of rubble because he got locked out of it but doesn't really
want to clarify that point before Ben-Zion, with whom he has a
long-standing fued, over a line of fruit-trees I think, but when
he heard I am there he puts that feud aside and comes over to Ben-
Zion's to offer me rescue -- 
As I say, there is much nobility in the people of Moshav Modi'in

Well, briefly, Ben-Zion has compoiled collections of the niggunim
of Reb Nachman, and also of the niggunim of R. Shlomo, and both
collections will no doubt stand well in scholarly circles.
He also leads his sons in a band, and some of his sons also have
formed their own bands.  I guess his music is ok, some of the
songs he sings for a group havdalah every week, you can really
walk into the week with.

So anyhow, as I say in a poem, and Ag translated that one, I'm
sitting that evening in their front room, feeling too embarassed
for words or even for feeling of course, and Dinah remarks to me,
sometimes you have to be able to take as well as give.
Well, that was quite a noble remark to address to an apparent bum.

Had I seen in in my youth -- and she seems to me to be still in
hers -- I would have been drawn to her, or so I imagine.
They lived up in the north California woods, near mendocino, built
a house or two there, and may even have met Shrager.

Ben-Zion is also quite competent with computerized music.
Behind that rickety wooden door, in well-ordered cluter, is some
pretty good equipment.  It was he and Eliahu who set up my Modi'in
computer.

Well, next to Ben-Zion is Hatzkela and -- oy, her name runs away
from me at the moment, she once thought of marrying me but I
really wasn't interested, though I tried to be polite and
considerate aobut it -- Hadassah.

I think Hatzkelah stays firmly on the safe side of a somewhat
violent psychosis.  I also think he is very self-controlled and
would never hurt anyone.  

It's Friday, Shabat is at hand, but I'll do little special for it. 
It's too cold and too much trouble to go down to Olivone to get
anything special to eat or drink, and anyhow in this overcrowded
shack, which I still resent being moved into, there's scarcely
room even to set a Shabat plate, let alone a Shabat table.  I
know, I should transcend all that, everyone else does.
And I'll probably keep typing on Shabat, I'm not sure I could
brave the canoe-ride across that empty time otherwise.
Sun just came in the window.  Nice, but does make it harder to
type.  I am so bored with the pettiness of Honest George, and with
having practically nothing to eat worth eating.  And with their
unspoken arrogant condescension and subtle snubs whenever I walk
in the door, so that usually, tho I may have intended to sit down
ina civilized manner, I walk out the door with whatever I had
odrdered in my hand, half-eaten or drunk.  I can't even return the
cups and plates without risking some sort of snub.  Lukewarm food
or drink, served when its 10 below outside.  I doubt these folks
were ever on a trail, they sit around in shirt-sleeves, smoking in
the Restorante.
Blah blah.

So:  Hatzkelah.
He has the reputation, well-earned I'm sure, of being an excellent
sofer, that is, one who writes in Hebrew the sacred texts for
liturgic use -- that is, with feather quills, in ink, on
parchment, where even a single error invalidates the work.
He once told me that he took thorauine to do his work.  Though
maybe he meant, only on one occasion.  But I was shocked. 
Thorazine is a bad drug, marijuna and psychedelics are good drugs,
alcohol is merely plesant, as is coffee.

He is also assistant postmaster, or was.  Very reliable, entirely
honest, well-disciplined.  Really doing most of Shoshana's work
for her.

And also very honest in answering questions of tora, never
arrogant and never condescending.  
Some guys came over from Kiryat Sefer to give a Talmud class to
the benighted natives.  I suppose they think that R. Shlomo
corrupted us all, and they must save us.  
The head of it all is a chap named Gideon, from the USA, so naive
that one can't be like him, and even feel protective toward him.
Hatzkela could have eaten him in one bite.  I said, why didn't
you.  Hatzkela said, what good would that do.
Hatkela said, Gideon is so naive that when I said cannabis, he
though I said canopy.  Hatzkela argued one day that "a sweet
savour unto the LORD" meams, marijuna.  But Gideon did not take
the bait.
Reb Meir came to a few of the classes, and he really could chase
those guys all around the barn.  It was a delight to watch, though
I could follow only the dynamics of it, not the details.

Well, R. Shlomo's house sits empty most of the time, not even held
open as a library or some such.  His ex-wife, who seems to have
been traumatized into chronic denial by their divorce, and his
daughgers, who I doubt will ever be much more than rich New York
housewives -- though Neshama has the sexiest bedroom voice I've
heard since Julie London, quite out of place with religious songs.
There was a flap on the R. Shlomo LIST some years back, ostensibly
over the halachic quetion of whether "the voice of a woman is
lewdness."  Well, obviously, in almost all cases it is not.  But
there are occasional exceptions, and Neshama is one.

So ok, then there's Billy.  Bill Richman.  A thoroughly decent
chap, and "hater of dishonest gain", for his house is just the
original few rooms.  He started out as davka an assistant
prosecutor in Chicago.  Specialized in environmental cases, he
tells me.  And often as not sided with the accused, though I'm not
sure how all that sorts out.  I mean, he had to have been on tghe
side of the good guys all the time.  Comes on as a bit of a
shambling buffoon, but don't we all.  Me anyhow.  Had me intgo his
home many times for meals when I first came back.  Quite a
competent handyman, he has whitewashed the roof of both 103 and
101 for me, and seems to undercharge -- me anyhow.
Supervises tree-planting for Keren Kayemet in the Modi'in forest.
Usually greets me, "Hi-ho Steverino" -- that's from the Steve
Allen TV show of the 1970s -- to which I politely reply, as befits
the matters of a strictly religious neo-orthodox community,
"Howdy, Bill."  One often refers to him as Billy, though usually
not to his face.

Somehow I missed speaking of Bill's daughter, and her husband
Avraham.  She is a lovely, rather physically frail person, who
suffered a serious back problem, since repaired I think, upon the
birth of her daugher.  He is a lovely person, tall and physically
quite strong, with somewhat above-par military experience, but I'd
hate to see him in a real combat situation, he is as gentle a soul
as ever I've seen.  Where I have the soul or spirit or whatever of
a killer, and the physical aggressiveness of a bunny-rabit on a
traumatic day.
He's one of quite a small number of people with whom I can have a
serious religious discussion.  I suppose we talk mostly in hippie
code, head-talk.  It's just about the only possible language for
discussing anything mystical, including anything seriously
religious.  Religion is of course the language for disucssing
anything psychedelic, or anything mustic psychedelic, "or
something".  You'll know it when you get there.

Shalom Schwartz I have always found rather a difficult character. 
Quie strict religiously.  but I think fair, and honest.  And
charitable in his way, when he ran communal meals who would never
turn anyone away for lack of money, and was always careful to see
that anyone who needed food, including me, got a share of the
leftovers.  He has built a nice wood rail fence around his house,
and also built a mikveh for the men of the community, after the
Moetza refused men access to the mikveh during a water shortage,
and has not reversed that when the shortage ended.
Sonetimes he will lead davening, quite unobjectionably, he does
not impose his personality nor any spiritual nor ideologic agenda
upon it.  Parve in the best sense, a vehicle for the congregants
to ride on.  And quite disingeresed and correctged in offering the
various honors to those in attendance.
He serves tequilla between courses at the Shabat meals, which is a
fine way to refresh the palate, I should think the whole world
would do so if they knew.

Golumb I have usually found difficult, but I think he has a good
heart.  A very heavy pose or facade, that of a good ol' boy from
Alabama, which maybe he once was.  I think he really wants to be a
Rebbe, and his surprisingly close, but my guess is that he's still
on the short side of a rather high hurdle.  I mean, how can anyone
be a Rebbe who still wants to be.  But he is married to Leah, and
she is obviously a great teacher, and she clearly loves him.
Leah Golumb has suffered much from physicl affliction, though when
she was younger she was a swimming instructor.  She must surely be
counted amongst the foremost students of R. Shlomo Carlebach, and
all her teachings recorded and preserved.  She cobines a solid
orthodox education, some real mystic insight, a sharp mind despite
a kidney ailment and transplant -- for dialysis patients , which
she is not, tend to suffer mental impairment whenever the blood
needs cleansing -- Carol Robbins (Meyers), who was quite active in
dialysis pateints rights, told me she did.  I expect she's long
gone by now, but who knows.  Lived on Evergreen Road in Hartford
Connecticut.

Golumb was long the Moshav Radbash, but apparently he lost that
job, and seems to have taken that fall from glory with a
thoroughly good grace, and found himself another vocation as a
sort of spiritual do-gooder, whether or not one wants good done to
oneself by him.  He calls people to the Torah, and then gives them
often highly-detailed after-blessings, which is really just the
perogative of a Rabbi.  Eliahu once said that in the old days he
could get a bit outrageous with that sometimes, but nowadays I
think not.  I think there is real inspiration coming through him,
but I'm not sure that it comes thorugh entirely clear.  I can't
follow the Hebrew of course, nor barely the English, and there's
nothing obviously wrong with anything I've heard him say, and
surely nothing heretic but -- well, I prefer to stick with the
standard bracha, and leave the rest of it unspoken, in the wings
of heaven.

While I was recovering at Modi'in, through '04, I avoid his
brachot, for fear they might steer me a bit off-course.
He once told Judy, if you tell me not to say these brachot, I
won't.  But she would not take on that responsibility.  Hai says,
its ok, just ignore him.  But Hai has extraordinary spiritual
strength.  Hai can sit through the entire Modi'in minyan, and also
Hai has the finest musical ssense I have heard in a synagogue, so
I can't imagine how he can -- I suppose its his training as a
soldier in a tank, which is also not so musical and a bit cramped. 
And also, he coaches adolescents in sports, which is what the
Modi'in Shabat minyan often seems to be.

Someone once asked PVK for a blessing, for each member of the
class.  PVK said, I would dare to do do, except being in the
consciousness of Murshid -- that is, HIK, who was not on earth on
so presumably had an adequate overview of such matters.  Though
too, PVK always seemed to speak of HIK as somehow superior to
himself.
And I have not known of anyone spiritually comporable to PVK,
except maybe Little Joe Gomez.

If there was ever a military emergency on the Moshav, it is Hai I
would follow, or so I suppose.  I do not think of anyone else on
the Moshav I would fully trust.  Or even trust very far.

Hai's firstborn is Elisheva.  Her simple religiosity and faith in
me played a large part in my recovery, I would say, though she
scarecely said anything more to me than, Are you going to the Bet
Knesset.  She is very intelligent and very perceptive, and a very
good person.  I think Hai never accepted the fact, spiritual as
much as physical, that his first-born was not male.  So Sheva was
left to play the part of the first-born -- as she did -- without
the support that such a role should have.  So she would sometimes
get in fights with him -- not physical, but shouting -- Hai is a
gentleman, and very highly self-disciplined.  She once said to me,
after such a contretemps, that she was not afraid of him.  Well, I
could not say as much.  Judy once remarked to me, with clear
approval, that in such situations the other siblings would stand
by her.
Well, Judy is middle-aged now, and I think had enough of difficult
deliveries -- so if ever there was a case for a discrete affair,
or better, taking a 2nd younger wife while the original wife
reigns supreme in the household, this would be it.

R. Joshua left Emunah and took a 2nd, younger wife, and has had I
think 2 children with her.  Well, its disgraceful and shameful and
all that, but on the other hand, who could object to having a few
more Witts in the world.   All the original batch seem to be
turning out quite nicely.

R. Joshua was of course R. Shlomo's right-hand man, at least in
Israel.  What a wealth of remiiscences and anncedotes he must
carry about with him.  One hopes they will somehow be preserved. 
He sits in Vienna now, I think in the baths town where R. Shlomo's
shul is, but I don't know how active he remains with the R. Shlomo
community.

Well, who's next down the line, that one might see out of doors at
Modi'in.

Judy Rosenberg and her husband -- names keep slipping past me when
I come to look for them -- it will come back if I ignore it --
they seem to like to play games -- anyhow, both of them innocents,
he especially, for all that she sits on the Vaad, and has a sharp
clear intelligence.  She seems to have that sort of private school
accent that I grew up with.  Saki Lee does to, who is maybe now
the strongest active member of the SO, but just sits in Holland
leading her group, whoever comes to her, and teaching firmly in
the tradition of PVK.
Well, they are young people with 4 or 5 young children, and they
carry all that in a most charming matter, both of them gentle and
patient and devoted to the children.  It can be quite refreshing
to sit in their house.  They wear religion with a nimimum of
affedtation.

I find the Sands problematic, though she works very hard at doing
mitzvot, and takes their relative wealth as an obligation to be
discharged, rather than as a personal possession.  Few people with
money do so, though that is the Jewish tradition.
He is not doubt an excellent parfumier, who has done much to
recreate the scents of Temple times, and so contributed
substantially to the rebirth of Jewish religious culture, in a New
Age context.  A bit of self-indulgent yuppie vanity maybe, but
nobody's perfect (myself excepted of course.  Like Jesus said,
anyone busy picking out motes in the eyes of others cannot be
expected to bother with the 2--by--4 in his own.  That's a 2 inch
by 4 inch cut piece of lumber, Humbert.)
But I digress.

They live in the house that Abe built.  When I first came, it was
an unusued communal building, and housed the tessare from the
excavation of the Byzantine monastary that commands he high ground
of the Moshay  -- a very nice vibe there.  
So Abe built a spite fence of fast-growing cypress to shield him
from the view of Aryeh's chickens goats and assorted disorder --
Aryeh too was 'hadesh yamenu k'kedem', into recreating biblical
conditions -- his thing was to maintain as much of a rural
lifestyle as possible, pressing his own olive oil, making his own
wine, and so on.
Anyhow, the cypresses have grown very nicely, and make a nice long
avenue.

Well, there's Avi.  Tia is his wife.  She once wrote something
like, Less brotherly love, more human decency.  She once said, the
reason you can't have sex standing up on the Moshav is that it
might lead to mixed dancing.  A sharp intelligence, solid values,
a matter-of-fact attitude toward Judaism.  When Avi davens, it is
with the chic-chac upper minyan; everything quick clean and
simple, so you can go home to lunch.  He raises organic avacodoes. 
Just about the only person on the Moshav who really works, at
least with the land.  Used to have Machmud as a foreman, from the
Arab village of Media, which was maybe the biblical Modi'in of the
Makabis -- but heck, with a bit of historical revisionism you can
say we stole it from the Arabs, not the converse.  The organic
avacadoes get mostly exported to Europe, where they can afford
such things, but nowadays the politically correct or their Arab
instigators are saying, don't buy from Israel, its on land stolen
from the Arabs.  Well, as Tia points out, pretty much acccurately
I suppose, the land their avacados grow on was never Arab land.
Well, it ain't West Bank, but there was substantial pre-1948 Arab
settlement the region.  Though we know of Lod from Talmudic and I
think biblical times.
Lod -- I think that's opium poppies.  That Yakov has his sons
carry down as a gift to Pharoh.  Though maybe it came then from
Lebanon.  Anyhow, red poppies grow at Moshav Mevo Modi'in.

So anyhow, this copy of EinsteinWriter, W.EXE version 8.2 , is
descended from a copy I got from Avi in the late 80s.  I must by
now have copied it hundreds of times, I give it away to anyone I
can.  Most illegal no doubt, but EinsteinWriter is obsoleted,
except for me.  They years ago closed their office on Hillel
street, by the El Al office.  And I'd still like someone to crack
the source code here, there are a lot of little improvements I'd
like to see on EinstinWriter, starting with real macros.

But I'd say the overall its better than Microsoft Word.  Does just
about everything an intelligent writer could want.  Almost
entirely self-explanatory.  only 96K,and that includes the Hebrew
version,which I scarcely ever use.  Version 8.2 was never released
oommercially, as they would pointedly tell me at the Einstein
office whenever I stopped by.  It was a Beta test.  So now it's
the Beta test that got away.

For many things its much more efficient than Word.  Word for
Windows, that is.  But then, the Windows interface is only for
idiots, Dos-hased is much more efficient.  First of all, there's
all that miserable eye-hand co-ordination required, so as your
eyesight gets weaker with age, Windows becoms harder to use.  And
you have to take your hands off the keyboard to use the mouse, tho
as I told EG, for the laptops, you shoud just mount a ball-bearing
floating in a case ona velcro strip on your thumb, and then use
could use the laptop mousepad without removing your fingers.

and even apart from that, count the steps to copy a few lines, in
Einstein and in Word-for-Windows.  Einsein is much hetter.

Incidentally, I'd like to some day meet the idiot who designed the
standard keyboard, and shoot if retroactively to say 1970.  Eg,
the backspace-erase key sits next to the insert-overite toggle key
-- and who ever nees to over-write anyhow,, excpet an accountant --
so I'm often hitting the overwrite by mistake.

Oy.  Sun's out, wind's stopped at last, it's civilized outside
again, with people standing around outside in the parking lot. 
Time to apply for a plate of chicken and rice by Honest George, I
suppose.  Doesn't even hurt much when I sneeze anymore.  I can go
to the doctor and post this stuff next week, I suppose.  I mean,
why walk when you can write.  The times of writing are few enough
and far between, whatever the reasons.

Sure wissh I couild get a full-screen DOS window though, this
one's about one-third screen -- half vertial, two-thirds
horizontal, with font size reduced accordingly so whenthe sun's
out I dan barely read the screen.

Well, Nico showed me how to get a full screen, but I forget how
now, and alsw, on a full screen for DOS one can't go back into
Windows mode without a reboot or some such.

Well, if anyone from Modi'in reads their description here and
doesn't like it, write your own, I'll put it on instead.

There's Zusha.  He leyns clearly and joyously.  Every word
distinct.  One can follow it all.  They say Hai leyns better, but
his leyning is subtler, far more musical, harder to follow.
Zusha sometimes serves as Baal Tfila, and that's similar -- clear,
easy to ride on.
Zusha occasionally gives dvar toras, and those are ok, solid
enough.
His wife is a bit too intelligent for this world.  Some sort of
social worker, or was.  Was an excellent natural foods cook, and
no doubt by now is even better.  Should surely have published a
cookbook.

R. Avraham Aryeh Trugman -- well, he lives in a big house.
I can't stay with his davening -- seems to go off onto the astral
plane.  Maybe he got that from Yitzak Ginsburgh, who I supect is a
brilliant idiot.  Used to teach math at Harvard, they say.  Said
to denigrate Arabs, but at Harvard they denigrate everybody. 
Including Jews, I don't doubt.  Dershowitz notwithstanding -- and
he's maybe the only Jew at Harvard apart from the Hillel rabbis
who hasn't it one way or another denied his open people. 
Kissinger almost killed us in the 1973 War, until Nixon insisted
the our troops be resupplied.  Though it was Kissinger who advised
Israel, at the onset of the intifada, end it quick.

I don't know if Reuven Gilmore has ever recovered from the murder
of his son , Aish Kodesh, zl'b, by a terrorist.
He walks around, a large, gentle man, seeking only to do good in
the world, as a healer.

The Rav, Rav Hoffman, is so square he's cool.  Very straight, by
his lights.  He gave me a place to stay when I needed it, and
never pressed me for money.  And invited me, and Yehudit Israel
too, for Seder when we needed a place -- well, I had no lack ov
invitations, but was pretty unsure of myself at that stage, and
his sort of unqeustioning assurance helped.  Hatzkele says,
whenver there's a red alert -- that means, rumours of an impending
pot bust -- we throw the seeds over the fence into the Rav's yard.
Rav Hoffman is no fool, he set up the 2nd minyan so the black-
coats could have somewhere to daven quick and clean, without all
the Modi'in shtuyot.  He has built a very large 3-story house, how
and why I do not know.  I think it has not been finished, for
lacks of funds.  That is the case with very many houses in Isreal.

Well, there's Chaim Gingy Cohen, who is brilliant -- well, almost
everyone at Modi'in is -- and I think has a Ph.D in something or
other.  He is also so far up his own backside then one can often
barely comprehend him.  His wife, Ruthie, is a very solid,
grounded person, always warm and open.  Chaim is one of those who
have undertaken to serve as a bridge to the naked hippies of the
Rainbow Tribe, and like that.  HIs hospitality to visitors seems
unlimited.  And he does care about recycling.  HIs is one of the
houses that overlooks the vistas facing the city of Modi'in, which
has so far kept at a respectful distance from us.

At the airport they said to me, to be sure I had not just flown in
from Baghdad or some such, you live in a neighborhood of the city
of Modi'in, yes.  Or maybe they said, suburb.  I tried to say
back, no, we were the original Modi'in, the city is just a nearby
newcomer.

Morty is very quiet, intelligent of course, keeps his own counsel
and his own space.  His wife, who is R. Zalman's oldest child as
far as I know, is something similar.  Very unaffected people, play
none of the Modi'in political games.  He often goes to the nearby
upper shul.

I have written of Yitzak.  His wife is a bit strict with him, or
so he seems to say, but otherwise Yitzak might some day forget to
come back for lunch from his studio, and just float away onto one
of Margritte's clouds.

Yitzak grew up as an assimilated international set Greek,
schooling in Alexandria as I recall.  As an young adult he learned
he was matrilinearly, and so halachically, Jewish, and decided to
go with that.  A beautiful English speaking voice, incidentally.
Again, his artistic vision may be somewhat mundane, but his
technique is extraordinary, and may yet receive lasting notice. 
His Website is extraordinary, entirely his pictures.  No hustles,
no come-ons, just content.  Well, so is mine, but his is pretty
and mine is ugly.
HIs mother lives in Brussles, but has come to Modi'in for long
visits, so clerly she no longer denies her Judaism.  Quite rich,
I'm sure.

Rav Taizi lives in the last house on the upper row, I think with
an apartment for his father.  He leads davening, when he does, in
a clear straightforward manner, does not put on airs, is always
friendly, open, and polite.  I think it is he he broght the
Temanim group to Modi'in.  They have no particular interest in R.
Shlomo, Modi'in was just an attractive location into which they
were able to attach themselves.  They are all black-coat, which is
a bit incongruous for Temanim, who have their own religious
culture, a very old and very vibrant one, and really ought not be
taking on that of eastern European 19th centuty Ashkenazim. 
Especailly not in the Middle East, where Arab culture is what is
suited to the climate and ecology.
I suspect it was Taizi who got Yakov fired as shomer; I can't
imagine that the Radbash had the nerve to do it on his own.
And it may have been Taizi who was behind that unnecessary
security road, which destroyed almost all the tall trees that
served as a border to the Moshav, and shielded it from highway
noise.  And I suspect that more than a bit of money was involved
in all that.

R. Yankele Shames moved with Amy down to Bet Meir.  Amy had left
him for some crazy guy, or so they say, by whom she had a baby. 
Amy's mother is a Holocaust survivor, and I suppose Amy considers
herself obligated to repopulate the Jewish people.  Though I think
her mother had only two children.  Anyhow, R. Yankele then took
Amy back as his wife, which is a noble enough thing to have done,
and very kind too.  Adding her new child to his family.
She was growing too thin last I saw her.  I had been quite deeply
in love with her for quite some time, since before her divorce
from that ghastly chap, an ex-docter who had served in Vietnam and
seemed to be dabbling in black magic.  Cost me a breakdown too,
which I spent on the beach at Netanya, where at least they had
good ice-cream, until I realized Tesha b'Av was at hand, and went
back to the Moshav.  Also rather lowered my army profile, from
about 99 to about efes v'hetzi.  Noting terribly dramatic about
all that.  As a Haga-nik, having completed Haga basic training in
perfectly good form, I was eventually called up and put for 3
weeks on a little base near Jerusalem where there was nothing to
do but sit next to a radio transmission tower.  Which no doubt
inappropriately agitated my personal collectdion of neurons.  Thre
were 3 of us there, as I recall, all with nothinig to do.  One
night it was my job to stand guard, with a loaded Uzi.  At one
point I climbed up to the roof.  The minaret was blasting their
own particular invocation of the mystic.  It was the onset of
summer, rather hot.  I walked over one day, in uniform of course,
to the nearby Arab-Israeli coffee shop, to buy a bit of baklava. 
The real soldier in our group -- I think he had been dropped from
the regular army, maybe for breaking down during the Lebanon war -
- said, what do you want to do, start the  next war.  So after that
I went shopping at the frumie center on the other side of that
base.  You know, in Israel we're all pretty closely juxtaposed,
it's a small country.  It was Friday, and I had Shabat leave
coming.  That was not easy to arrange -- I mean, 2 days off for a
member of a team of 3.  But I felt under some sort of religious
obligation.  I just hadn't occurred to me that I could easily have
done my religious duties at the frumie community 5 minutes walk
from us.
So that day some of the Arabs set a fire -- I think it maybe had
less to do with our base than with some sort of local feud -- a
car had been set on fire a night or so before.  Anyhow, I was for
some reason alone on the base, and I put the fire out, using the
available fire extinguishers and flip-flops.  At one point the
fire was near the edge of the transmission tower.  And after that,
when the others came back, I went off on my weekend leave,
proceeding almost immediately to flip out.
I think it had less to do with army stresses than with some sort
of realization that I had let Amy get on the plane to the USA
without asking her to marry me.  And also, it was time for the
annual Sufi Camp, and the mystic calls of a Sufi hierarchy, and/or
one's Sufi friends, are not the easiest thing to integrate while
serving in the Israel armed forces.  So the upshot was, I talked
myself out of military service -- this is the sort of thing that
every USA pschedelic hippy knows as a sort of 2nd-instinct -- and
after that, no doubt conssumed by Zionist guilt, I really did flip
out.  However, I left all my military gear, particularly my weapon
and also my army boots, carefully at the base before flipping out. 
Eventually I was called into some sort of hearing, and the junior
officers there quite courteously told me I was being profiled out. 
Well, I had lied my way into the Israeli army -- I had never
mentioned a previous mental breakdown or two.  I thought I was
over and on top of all that, and that lying one's way into the
Isreali army was as honorable as lying one's way out of the U.S.
Army, which I had also done some decades before.  I think I wrote
of that in my first Autobiography.  Like Dylan says, one never
expected to live so long.

Good grief, it's practically springlike outside, in the sun.  I
can piss without cursing the wind or cold.  Who could ask for
more.

I may re-apply for a slop of chicken and white rice at Honest
George's, if they're not too busy.  Did have a bag of potatoe
chips earlier, though. 

Well, there's still Alifa left.  A good Christian.  Reads and
writes books, and even listens to music.  Works up at Hebrew U.
for the Sasson Center for the Study of Anti-Semitism.  Rather a
miserable set of bus rides, I should suppose, though not a faction
as bad as it used to be.  Well, she's a convert too, and wears it
like an everyday coat.  Comfortable enough, but no big deal. 
Still seems a mid-Western Christian in any cultural sense. 
Protestant I should say, not Catholic, tho I think she's been
both.  Still likes Jesus.  Well, so do I, though I don't pray to
him, except maybe in emergencies.  Anyhow, anybody's religion is
nobody else's religion, including a spouse.  I could never ask a
woman I wanted to marry to convert.  That would be most improper. 
Like Baker-Roshi says, it's no more than alternative meta-
languages.
Alifa is maybe the one rational person on the Moshav.  I am not
the second.  I'm much too smart to be rational.
She was the first wife of David Herzberg, zl'b, and he is the
father of her two girls, though she brought them up, on the
Moshav.  He was a very strong person, extraordinary, though he
always kept his strength from imposing on others.  He was always
very gentle toward me.  I do regret not having visited him when he
was in prison.  Jesus says we should, and he's quite right.  I
didn't even go to David's last wedding, because it was a Bet El,
and I was scared to travel through the Territories.  I don't mind
getting killed, but a certainly don't want to walk around wounded,
life is hard enough with all my parts in place.
Anyhow, Alifa must have extraordinary strenght if she was able to
stand up to David Herzberg, even if he was on best behavior.
The girls speak of him with warmth, she speaks of him very little.
He once told me that his last wife, to whom he was married, was
like all his previous wives combined.  Well, that is a David
Herzberg sort of joke.  His bust was for possession or attempted
sale of pot, an entrapment I think.  I mean, pot is no sin.
But Israel always lags behind the times.

Well, so much for Modi'in.                    

For all that it's warm in the sun, it's still several degrees
below zero.  Honesst George his larder all hath sold, before 2:30,
not even a plate of sphaghetti left.  Minestrone, but how many
electrons can it have left after daily micro-waving.  Or so I
ssuppose.  No doubt I wrong the fool.  And anyhow can lunch on
milk with sugar-cubes.  Or was that breakfast.

As I say, I left New Mexico in the early 70s, and came back only
once, for a brief visit.  That was the summer Mathew was born.  I
have often dreamt of returning, and really should.  Well, we shall
see.

As I say, I lived then in my mother's house, almost at once on the
third floor, which was, or is, bright and airy, with a double-bed
mattress thrown on the floor.  I worked in the first-floor
sunroom, on an extra-large desk.  Those days it was still all
typewriter.  I wrote a number of short Philosophic articles,
mostly in response to articles ina new journal called
'Philosophical Investigations.'  They were ok articles I think,
tho I don't know if I ever submitted any.  I had some copies at
HaOn, but I don't know if those still exist.

I gradually collected records, almost all of them excellent
performances on budget labels, that I would buy at Briggs and
Briggs in Harvard Squaare, for about a dollar a record.  Most of
Schnabel playing Beethoven.  Anything I could geet of Svatislav
Richter and of Landowska.  Various performances of the Bach
Brandenburg concertos.  Casals playing the cello suiees of Bach. 
The Budapest String Quartet playing the Beethoven late quartets. 
Dennis Brain playing the Mozart horn cenertos.

I left all that collection with Azimat Schreiber , who had married
Dr. Herb Cohen of Marblehead.  Maybe she still has it, tho I think
she never realized its value.

Our childhood bunk beds I gave away to Suhrwardi Gebel for their
kids.  Well, I had to do someething with them, and really couldn't
take them to Israel.

Many goods, almost all of sentimental rather than monetary value,
I shipped to Israel, where the went into storage, and stayed
there.  At once point, this would be 1988, I had to chose between
redeeming them from storeage, or going to the Sufi Alps camp, and
so left them in storage.  I was living in a straw-roof shack at
Bet Zayit campground at the time.  I do not know what then
happened to them.  Maybe they could be traced.  Maybe they still
exist, in one place or scattered.

Peter Steiner was managing my funds then.  I think it is not
unfair to say that he rather pushed for that position, and I
suppose he thought he was doing my mother's will thereby.  He was
always very attatched to her.  She was his older sister, and
nursed him through recupreation from rheumatic fever as a boy.
Well, the dead do have the right to change their minds.
And this whole notion of carrying out the will of the dead stands
in need of a bit of philosophic, that is to say conceptual,
analysis.

Well, I reckon that's water over the dam by now.  We can rarely
squaree accounts with those who wrong us, nor should be try.  So
everyone says -- Jesus, HIK -- .  They escape into the mists of a
sentimental dotage.  

Anyhow, there I am back in Belmont, occasionally taking very
sentimental walks past the old house in Cambrige.

My mother gave me lodging and food, "three squares a day" as my
father once said.  I did temporary work for spending money.  At
first it was often manual work, but soon became office work.

Once I drove a fork-lift for a day, in Holbrook, on the south
shore.  It was an unusually high wage, I think around 3 dollars an
hour.  I was hoisting rolls of metal, each probably weighing over
a ton, to hang them up high overhead.  The forklift had a metal
mesh roof that I do not think would have withstood one of those
rolls.  I wore what I think was merely a bump-hat, not even a
hard-hat.  The noise was high,and the air oily.  That night I
thought and maybe dreamed, or half-dreamed, about it, and in the
morinng told my mother I was not going back.  She was a bit
surprised.  It occurred to me then, as it has subsequently, that
this was very dangeous work, to which an untrained person should
not have been assigned.

As I rule of thumb, I would or should reject any work that
requires exposure to toxic or septic materials.  That includes
some of the jobs at Zenith, sad to say.  Eg painting the FYB's
(Fine Yellow Boards) with some sort of polysomething
waterproofing.

And once in Israel there was a job working with sort of half-
processed sewage water, used to irrigate cotton.

At some point I got my Aunt Ruth's old convertible, a Pontiac 1974
V-8, as I recall.  I enjoyed that very much, and almost always
kept the cloth top down, even in the rain.  It was especially nice
driving out in southern New Hampshire in foliage season.  Whnever
I had an occasion, I would take my mother out for drives, usually
to see the foliage, sometimes around Lincoln and Walden, including
the DeCordava museum.

I took to jogging, and in winter cross-country ski-ing, in the
Lincoln--Walden network of trails.  When Walden Pond froze over I
would to ice-skating there. That was extremely beautiful -- to
look down through the fractured ice, more than a foot thick, to
the water below.  And the wonderful sense of freedom one has in
skating on a large pond -- almost like an eagle.

In summer I would sometimes swim across Walden Pond -- the narrow
width of it, not the long length.  The water in the middle of the
pond tasted delicious.  The say Walden Pond is so deep that no one
knows the depth of it.  It must have been most sacred to the
Indians.  Thoreau loved it, and he was no fool.  He loved Indians
too.

Well, a few times I was selling newspapers, that is the weekly
semi-hippy newspaper, in front of Holyoke Center in Harvard
Square.  There were panhandlers.  At one point George Wald came up
to me and said, I don't know why they never ask me for money, I
would give them some.  He must have known my father, but I doubt
he knew who I was.  He must just have been being a typical
friendly Quaker.  Jewish too, incidentally.  And a Nobel Laureate.

I took then to typing through temporary agencies, and that led
into technical typing, which just meant changing the balls on an
IBM Selectric typewriter, and recognizing all the different
symbols and where to put them.  So I would often work at MIT,
wihch was a bit of a pang, though as it happened, never in the
Chemistry nor Physics Departments, that would have been too much. 
Very occasionally I would walk past my father's old office. 
Rather moving, of course.
At lunch breaks, which sometimes I made rather long, I would
sometimes walk over to the sailing pavillion.  My mother was
working at MIT, so I could be umbrulla'd under her card.  On a few
occasions I took her for a ride.

She had a job for rather a long time as an editor for the Research
Lab of Elecronics publication.  Rather a dull task.  Eventually
she had a job as some sort of special secretary to Gerald Weisner,
who was then President of MIT, and had of course been a colleague
of my father's.  
Occasionally I would go swimming in the MIT pool.  My mother swam
there just about every day.

I would go hiking on weekends with the Sub Sig Hiking Club.  In
winter I would go on cross-country ski trips with them.  
Gradually I became familar by sight with most of the White
Mountains, I think.

While I was dating Nancy I would sometimes go on trips alone with
her.  Once we went to Trapp family center in Vermont, which was
nice.

I must say that the trails I went on there were more intereting,
and more challening too, than this little over-groomed patch at
Campra.  I have not gone out on it on skis this year.  I'm afraid
of falling now.  Even the last time I was out on it, in the winter
of '98, I often fell.  And anyhow, I don't really approve of
artifically groomed trails.  It's much nice to be pushing one's
way through new snow.

I have walked up the highway a few times, usually just to the top
of the Strada Romana and then down it.
About a week ago I walked up to Lucamagno, having started up the
Strada Roman with Maya, then we continued to Acquacalda, and then
I walked up the road by myself to Lucamagno.  There was no wind
that day.  The Ospiuio was all boarded up, tho they might more
nicely have left the Refugio open.  So I wrote ny name in pen on
the boarded-up Refugio door, and immediately started walking back
down again, since I was sweaty and would otherwise have become
chilled.  Got back down via the Strada Romana shortly after dark,
without using a flashlight.  Took me most of the night to warm up. 
Honest George cuts back the heat at night, or did then.  He seems
to have no thought for the needs of mountaineers.  

I can thank Sub Sig for several affairs.  Nancy, Elaine -- dash it
who was the third --or was there -- this is getting annoying.  The
trick was to out-fumble everyone else and so be the last up to
that cold loft lined with mattresses.  Then one could sit and
sleep by the downstairs fire, preefeably with a lady companion.

There were not too many turkeys in Sub Sig.  Fewer than in the
AMC, or so I would imagine.
I hiked with the AMC a number of times while I was still in High
School, or maybe in summers duirng my college years.  i recall
once I as there and some member made a rather anti-Semitic remark,
to which I reasonably politely took exception, and for whidh he
tried politely to apologize, tho I think I rather rebuffed it.  It
told that incident of my father, and he said, I'm proud of youl 
At that stage AMC was barely past excluding Jews, and I think
still excluded Negros.  This would be early 1960s, or maybe late
1950s.

Well, one joins a hiking club just to learn the basics, and then
goes out on one's own.  I never would talk on the trails, I would
try to walk enough ahead or behind that I didn't even have to see
anyone else.

It was by the early 80s that the office work I was doing turned to
word processing, on dedicaed mini-computers.  (What we use now
were called micro-computes, and are not dedicated, they are multi-
use.)  I became quickly familar with most of the makes -- DED,
which was the best, and WANG, which was more or less as good, also
the IBM-6, and Xerox, and I think a few others.  The trick was
always to say you had experience on the system, and then to learn
it quick by trial and error before you got fired.  Worked more
often than not.

I always say, I've been fired from more jobs than most of you will
ever have.  Combined.

For one thing, what most offices really want is a fluffy
secretary, the which I ain't.  So I would be hired to do a large
rush job, and when that was finished, they would find some excuse
with which to fire me.

Last job I had was on a WANG, at First Bank of Boston.  This was
just after I came back from Israel, in 1986, and I kept my hat on. 
I really needed the support of my religious practice then.
So I pretty much got fired for wearing my hat.  I might have
gotten by with a kippa, but I never have liked kippot.  It's a
half-and-half hat, and I prefer not to be so demonstratively
symbolic.
Anyhow, my greatest regret about that job is that I did not input
on the WANG, as a hidden running head, "Don't launder money
It would have taken them a while to dig it out.
But I didn't.

Twice I rode up the coast on boats from MIT.  The last time was
from Boston to Maine.  The trip was supposed to be only one week,
but the 2nd-week crew cancelled, so we got to stay on.  for the
last day, I got them to go out to Matinicus.  I'd wanted Monhegan,
but there's almost no place to anchor there, the harbour is very
stricted, and there's no other natural harbour.
Then I had to take a bus back to Boston, from the mainland,
because it was Ciel's vacation and she wanted me to go up with her
to Vermont.  Which was ok, but I often rather wished I'd stayed on
for the rest of the week.  Though Ciel said that if I had not come
back, she would have broken up with me.  Which, in retrospect,
might have been for the best, in the long run.

Twice I went along as crew from Boston south.  Once with a guy who
had spent the summer at MIT, and was going to the Chesapeake bay. 
Nice enough guy, with his son and a family friend.
At one point we're somewhere off the New York or New Jersey coast,
trying to guess our position from overhead planes.  Out of sight
of land.  We're eating banannas.  We see a boat in the distance. 
The skipper tries to call her on the radio.  No answer.  He tries
to signal her.  No respone.  As she is passing by he shouts out,
"Do you want a bananna."

The other time I cut short a group retreat at the Abode with PVK. 
Not so bright a move.  I met the guy in Newport.  An old dude,
with a young wife in a bikini.  We get out there, and start to
share watches.  He tells me, My wife does not stand watches.  I
don't recall her saying hardly a word.  Then he starts extending
his sleep time, rather than relieving me.  At the end we're
sailing into Atlantic City pre-dawn, I'm on the tiller or wheel,
there are fishing trawlers criss-crossing before us, which could
be quite hazardous, and I'm seeing Moire patterns in front of my
eyes, from fatigue.  At once poing he asks me, If I told you to
climb up the mast, would you do it.  I allowed as how that was
doubtful.  In Atlantic City, now that it's only coastal sailing
left, he kicks me off the boat, though he was going down to
Norwalk.  I come back to Belmont by bus, and it turns out that
Susie Harrison is on a visit to cambridge.  So we meet.  in place
of that soft young woman with long brunette hair, and so gentle a
manner, is a rather tough older women, with close-cropped hair
showing grey, very much into jogging.  But it's still Susan.  She
is concerned that I have not found another companion, and am
living with my mother.  She says, You cannot find happiness with
an old lady.   Meaning, as much if not more, you cannot find
happiness without an 'old lady' , in the hippy sense of the term,
a woman companion,  She did not come out to Belmont to see my
mother, I'm not quite sure why.

When I returned in 1986, I called her, she was living then in
Hollywood, by herself I suppose, and we had quite a long talk. 
She said she hoped to have children, and I more or less blessed
her that she should, though I would not have put it quite that way
then.

Well, I'm not quite sure where to turn from here.  There's still
my involvement with the SO to speak of.
Maybe I'll just make a few gestures of getting ready for Shbat
now, and rest my wrist.

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