Saturday

Dear Peter:

Thank you for your very nice letter which arrived on my birthday. For me, too, time marches on. It seems like yesterday that I was finally old enough to go into bars, yet the few years prior to that seemed so long.

I have finally, just today, settled my immediate future. I didn't get the position at Hawaii, although I think that their choice was me or one other guy, and that choice complicated by a choice between experience and lack thereof. The letter indicated that the person they hired is an established worker, so I guess I shouldn't feel too badly. Anyway, it was a pretty cruel blow when it arrived. However, it is definite that I will post-doc at Stanford in Biophysics, with a joker named Hanawalt. Hanawalt has just written me that he will be able to support me out of his grant for at least six months, and by then I ought to be able to get an NIH post-doc. I have sent the application off a couple of weeks ago, and I ought to hear by the end of the summer, but sometimes the Lag is longer.

It will be sad for us to leave Seattle. We have gotten reasonably established here, and formed a goodly circle of friends both in and out of the University. The bay area is pleasant, though, and we know people there, so hopefully we can make the move without too much trauma. I guess that our stay there will probably be for a couple of years. It is hard to say. It will be nice to have a little higher monthly income.

I will have to decide what to do with my sailboat. I am tempted to buy a trailer, and take it along. I suspect that boat values are just as high in California as they are here, so there would be no profit in trying to buy a cheaper one there. I had to buy a new rudder, as my old one broke. My old one was, I think, the first fiberglass rudder this bloke had made, and I think hid design has improved somewhat.

I am now in the throes of thesis writing. It is a slow business. I must get it done, though, and quite soon. I think that after a lot of fooling around I have gotten into an interesting area, and this post-doctoral experience ought to help me quite a lot, giving me somewhat broader experience within the area, and perhaps most important, contact with people of different points of view than my associates here.

Everyone here is well. Lucy went back to school last quarter, and I think both enjoyed and profited from her class. She got an A, too, something I've found isn't too hard at this University, but still it makes her feel good. When we get settled she can get her degree. Love to Julia, Thos, and Sarah.

Much love, Crellin