Re: [Return Letter]
[He includes a (printed! color!) photograph of the book, sitting on his lap, with a view of a few pines and spruces. He's on his motel balcony. It's probably midday. His feet are crossed and propped on old wrought fencing, his legs bare, with the fringes of boxers evident. On the back it says, I was having coffee. It's not as cold as it looks - SM.]
A.A.M.,
Anning. That's an interesting one. Atticus Anning. I've never been to Irvington, not even when I was doing tours, but I know where it is. Your family's been here for a long time. Episcopalian too. I didn't know that. You can rest knowing you would've been McVickers, if not some other nickname. You can call me Steve. The only people who called me Cap were people who knew me as Cap, rather than as Steve. The mask, instead of the face. So, Steve is just fine. Teddy was always Teddy to me, but we knew each other as kids, so I guess it makes sense. His middle name's Theodore, and, since he was little, he always went by Teddy. Some of the guys called him Devlin, some Ted. But, he's always been Teddy to me. I can see why he'd prefer Matt now, if he feels like that part of him is gone. I'll have to try to remember that when I'm talking to him.
If you want to talk about the '70s though, Atticus, we can talk about the '70s. In the '70s, remember, it was called free love. Not free sex. The ideas were more intertwined. I'm not saying they're always one in the same, or that they were then. But, there was this idea that your heart was big enough for everyone. That you could sleep with someone, and still love someone else, and everyone was cool with that, man. Or the counter-culture was. It didn't always work out, and the '80s were a strong reaction to that, and to those kids, who were now grown up, deciding maybe they didn't have this whole thing right. But, if you did enough LSD, I'm sure you'd believe it forever. My inner romantic, it might have taken enough LSD.
I'll tell you the story another time. Is there some relation? I didn't know she had any family left.
Life's always easier without people, at least in the way you mean. But, I'd give anything for people. I'm sure you know that. I've lost mine so many times, that it looks different to me. I've tried to keep to myself since Vietnam, more or less, but that's a long time. Do you prefer the loneliness to the responsibility of caring for others? There are a lot of expectations, it's true. I'll hop off my tangent for now. The present depresses me too sometimes, but then I look around and see, some things, most things, are a hell of a lot better than they were. Food, for one. Vaccines. Education, even if that's far from perfect. Which isn't to say that today's problems aren't real, because they are, but, they're further manifestations of things we've always been dealing with, messes we've made. I absolutely did not get off the tangent, did I?
I'd vouch for the Atticus McVickers guy too.
I don't think you should strive to make changes. Survival has always been humanity's duty. Or, if not that, then our main goal. Something like that. You might not see it, but that's what the war was about. World War II. It was about survival, a way of life, protecting that, protecting others. Survival can change the world. You might not see it change from the basement, but I don't think that stops it. We've always needed historians, archival experts, writers, thinkers, preservers. If we didn't have people who served their duty as you do, we wouldn't know what we already knew, would we? You know who and what you are. That's good. But, there're other perspectives too, and maybe there can be both.