Letter to a Dead Soul Brother

It's been a while, Richard. Of course, you're often on my mind. In fact I was talking to your son the other day on the phone, and we imagined your laughter at the Sarah Palin affair and other recent gems on the political scene. I swear, the levels of stupidity and hypocrisy in politics are much greater than in your day a decade ago. It's hard to imagine, I know, but it's true. That great classic book we both love so much, Hoffstadter's Anti-intellectualism in American Life, has been joined by too companions, a book on American Unreason and another on the dire consequences of our national scientific illiteracy. For the first time since JFK we have a President who embraces the intellect but whether or not there's time, or political backing, to turn this around is uncertain. Our fall may be in the clutches of political gravity. We may be doomed.

Your mom is still hanging in, amazingly enough, and we'll be visiting her this summer. She'll probably outlive me as well. She is very frail but her mind is still active and her sense of humor as ribald as ever. On last visit she was complaining about a nurse she didn't like: "She's so fat if you put a broomstick up her ass she could sweep both sides of the street." I don't know another 88? year old woman who would say that ha ha.

I'm hanging in, too, although I have no desire to hang around one moment longer than the gods have in mind. I don't have any kindred souls left with whom to use black humor as a defense against the foibles of the day. It's not as much fun to laugh alone. So I miss you terribly and a handful of others as well. I seem to be outliving everyone, which makes no sense at all since the "accepted wisdom" would have me the first to go. If the gods have something in mind for me, they haven't told me yet.

I don't write with the same abandon that I used to have. I suppose that is mostly age but also I think it's running out of steam. This summer has been especially slow on that front. A change of life, maybe. Or again, just running out of steam. I've been doing it for so long and my archive is so large. I'm not quite ready to stop but I may be getting close.

I keep thinking, of course, that "my best work" is still in me, that some great revelation is just around the corner. Most, maybe all, writers think like that.

I'm on our deck in the cool morning of a rare heat wave, watching the birds feed. Not a bad morning at all. It would be better if you were here so I could hear that laugh of yours and see the gleam in your eye as you read the paper and saw the latest bit of national stupidity. You were a wonderful soundtrack for these times. I miss it -- and you.