15 February

Dear Peter:

Many thanks for your letter. Quelle surprise! I still think that you shouldn't have sent the $150, in as much as it would most likely be easier for you to keep said funds than to get them out of me again. Oh well, we'll see.

I haven't given up sailing, I have only pretty much given up racing. Successful racing is pretty demanding, and generally frustrating. Last summer I did win a weekend series, a series held for those boats that didn't do too well overall so far during the season. I think my boat isn't the slowest Lightning on the lake, only I don't really know how to sail, and I am too lazy to sign on a regular crew and train them properly. Ha ha. We have had a couple of weeks of lovely, spring-like weather -- temperature in the sixties, sunny, warm days. [...] .

I suppose that I should have explained myself better when I mentioned Linus and Anita's divorce. The letter from Linus disturbed me a good deal, and I have done a bit of thinking about marriage and life, both specifically in reference to them, and to Lucy and myself, and in general.

I think that Lucy and I get on quite well, in spite of rather inauspicious beginnings of our marriage. I think that this relationship is due to perhaps at least two factors, the main one being that we are generally quite compatible, and have found our life together, so far at least, quite satisfactory. I think another factor in the success of our marriage is an unwillingness on the part of each of us to see our marriage fail. Whenever there have been strains in our relationship we have both worked, and worked hard, to overcome them. As a result our marriage is such that I cannot offhand think of any other that I know of that is better, and although I suppose that there are women with whom I might easily have a happy marriage, I quite frankly cannot imagine myself without Lucy, I think she is the perfect wife.

[...]

It is rather hard for me to write this, and I'm not sure that I have really communicated what I feel. I thought Linus was to be in Pasadena this weekend, and I bought an airplane ticket, but he didn't go, so I didn't go. I finally wrote him; I feel terrible about that, but I don t know what the hell to say. Perhaps you are right, though, perhaps there wasn't anything between them. I just don't know.

Our kids have all recently recovered from a case of some terrible flu bug....no food for four days, spitting up all over. We haven't had measles or mumps yet, only chicken pox. We thought Kirstin had the mumps once, and I had a skin test, and had a feeble positive reaction, so maybe I do have antibodies. Anyway I was scared.

Much love

Crellin