Six-page handwritten letter, on the backs of my seventh-grade report cards. (I got one sheet for each class, giving my grade in that class.)<\/p>\r\n
\r\n29 April 1981<\/p>\r\n
Dear Mother & Pop!<\/p>\r\n
Hi, I wanted to fill you in on what\u2019s happening here\u2014\u2014well, guess what? I got a job! At Logical of course, at exactly the same pay & seniority as when I left ... \u201cSenior Development Programmer\u201d at $31200\/yr. ... well it\u2019s the best job I\u2019ve ever had, in a lot of ways. (Like choosing my own hours...) But the people are somewhat distant (the engineering mentality...) and it involves spending 40 hrs\/wk in their concrete building; you were there
x<\/strike>\u2014no windows I can see out; fluorescent lighting; air conditioning; 60-cycle hum everywhere; green phosphorescent glare of the CRT screens; I sit<\/u> most of the time at work, but fortunately get good exercise before work in the morning.<\/p>\r\nWell I had a long talk with John last night, & he helped me to see that what I really need in order to make a successful business, in adition to initial capitalization, is a business partner, who has experience, has done this kind of thing before ... maybe even has some money to put into it.<\/p>\r\n
So he\u2019s advertising for applicants for this position, in Seattle Times. In the meantime, I\u2019ll continue to work on a proposal to \u201cshow & tell\u201d
with<\/strike> our potential investors. I have been praying for months that the right people and the right money would be guided to us in this regard, & I believe it will happen: only it\u2019s a longer gestation period than I thought ... (when I left work early the other day I told my boss I had morning sickness...)<\/p>\r\nO I guess I shouldn\u2019t kid him about \u201cdown time\u201d, particularly since I\u2019ve only managed to get in to work about 18 hours\/week for all of April\u2014\u2014even though they\u2019re paying me $20\/hour worked... (not as much as a plumber or electrician, admittedly, but still it\u2019s neat to wander in off the street, sit and do puzzles and play with the computer for 5 hours (I\u2019ve worked 12:30-5:30 many days) and walk out $100 richer, woo-woo!)<\/p>\r\n
But they wouldn\u2019t go for that consultant status for very long; and besides, I wasn\u2019t using the time very constructively; basically just resting & thinking & reflecting & reading & relaxing & relating & reflexing & reeling & writhing & rhythmatics & refluxing & inviting my soul ... hmm I guess it was constructive after all ... but they wanted me full-time again, so I re-enlisted\u2014\u2014it\u2019ll be OK for a while.<\/p>\r\n
My boss
x<\/strike>\u2019s boss, a very intelligent, nice, & funny guy, came & shook my hand & sardonically welcomed me \u201cback\u201d\u2014\u2014\u201cbut I never left,\u201d said Ix<\/strike>...<\/p>\r\nWell, enough busyness\u2014\u2014I am glad to receive your letters and hear how well you are doing. O I wanted to tell you that vitamin E perles (also vitamin A perles) may be punctured and the oil squeezed out onto the skin, and promote very rapid skin regeneration\u2014\u2014have you tried this on your incision?<\/p>\r\n
Yes I did read Shibumi<\/u>, enjoyed it
x<\/strike> enormously<\/u> ... there\u2019s another book about an assassin, \u201cThe Evil that Men Do\u201d by Lance Hill, that is very powerful and tough. It involves the assassination of a South American, CIA-trainedx<\/strike> dictator\/torturer. (It couldn\u2019t happen to un-nicer guy...)<\/p>\r\nWell Joaquin said he was going to write y\u2019all, and he\u2019s into sports statistics, so I won\u2019t give you the times and finishing places, but
x<\/strike> I just want to tell you how good I felt after the 10,000 meter (6 miles) race we ran ... I was really happy that I\u2019d run the whole way, and finished, and got a tee-shirt and red \u201cFINISHER\u201d ribbon. The race was over a network of levees in the Bay, sponsored by City of Sunnyvale (near Logical). I had a bit of sideache during second & third miles, but ran past the pain and felt real good throughout the second half... I never did catch up to Joaquin though ... !! I think we\u2019re going to run in a 4½ mile race called \u201cDUMP-TO-DUMP\u201d ... We\u2019re reading a wonderful book called \u201cMaximum Performance\u201d (in paperback).<\/p>\r\nIt turns out that if
you<\/strike> one pushesyour<\/strike>oneself too hard, the body goes into \u201cemergency\u201d mode, and expends great amounts of stored energy, exhausting one very quickly. But if one pushes oneself just a little (like walking a little faster and\/or a little farther than usual), it seems the body does wondrous<\/u> things: the mitochondria begin making ATP (binding energy) at 15-20 times their usual rate; and new capillaries<\/u> begin to develop around heart & lungs ... fantastic.<\/p>\r\nWell I look forward to the time when our business will materialize in Seattle\/Tacoma area, and when you can spend more time with your beautiful healthy talented intelligent grand-children ... even if it means Jed couldn\u2019t take the Japanese class he\u2019s signed up for next year...<\/p>\r\n
Much Love & Light to you\u2014<\/p>\r\n
Peter, Jed, Joaquin<\/p>\r\n<\/blockquote>\r\n
Notes<\/h2>\r\n
\r\n
- report cards (which the letter was written on the back of)<\/dt>\r\n
- They were for a period ending in late March, 1981, around the time that I turned 13; I was in seventh grade. I got two B+s, three A-s, and one A. I remember almost nothing about those classes, and I remember only three of the teachers\u2019 names. The A was in Creative Writing, where the teacher (Mrs. Tomczak) circled the \u201cExcellent. Exceeds requirements\u201d option and wrote \u201cTalented writer!\u201d next to it.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201cgot a job\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- I assume that he had gone from full-time at Logical Business Machines to part-time consulting work there, and was now getting back to full-time; but I have no memory of those changes\u2014all I know about them is from this letter.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201c$31200\/yr.\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- In 2022 dollars, that\u2019s about $100,500 a year.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201cconcrete building\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- Interesting to me to read this description\u2014the kind of work environment he\u2019s describing is essentially what I\u2019ve worked in all my life, and sounds completely ordinary to me. But I know that lots of people even now have the same reaction as Peter to that kind of environment. And I can see how someone like Peter, who had never worked a sit-at-a-desk-in-an-office-all-day job until a couple years before this letter, might have an especially hard time with it.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201csuccessful business\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- I\u2019m not sure which of Peter\u2019s many business plans this was, but I\u2019m guessing it was an early iteration of his plan to start a bookstore\/coffee shop with tutoring for math and computers and go-playing in the back room.<\/dd>\r\n
- I agree with his\/Dobe\u2019s point here that Peter would have needed someone who understood business as a partner; I suspect that Peter didn\u2019t have any plans more detailed than the core idea.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201c\u2018But I never left,\u2019 said I\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- I wonder if Peter was riffing on \u201cJoe Hill\u201d here\u2014\u201c\u2018I never died,\u2019 said he.\u201d<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201cperles\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- Huh\u2014I assumed Peter made up this word for gelatin capsules, but nope, it\u2019s a real word.<\/dd>\r\n
- Shibumi<\/cite><\/dt>\r\n
- A thriller by Trevanian, in which the game of go features prominently; for more, see Wikipedia<\/a>.<\/dd>\r\n
- running<\/dt>\r\n
- I know that within a year or two of the time of this letter, Peter started jogging, and got me and Jay to go with him. My vague recollection was that it was in the early morning (maybe even before dawn), and it was foggy, and I started referring to it as \u201cslogging.\u201d I didn\u2019t stick with it for long.<\/dd>\r\n
- Jay became a really good runner. I have no memory of Peter running in a 10k race; I don\u2019t think he ever did it again after this one, but I may be failing to remember other times too.<\/dd>\r\n
- \u201cwhen our business will materialize\u201d<\/dt>\r\n
- I\u2019m a little surprised to see that he was thinking that we would be moving to the Seattle area before the start of the next school year. That didn\u2019t end up happening; we stayed in Palo Alto through the end of my time in high school.<\/dd>\r\n<\/dl>\r\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peter writes about work, and once again plans to start a business. \u201cI wasn\u2019t using the time [away from work] very constructively; basically just resting & thinking & reflecting & reading & relaxing & relating & reflexing & reeling & writhing & rhythmatics & refluxing & inviting my soul … hmm I guess it was constructive after all\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-from-peter","category-palo-alto"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2524"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2578,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2524\/revisions\/2578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kith.org\/pmjj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}