LINUS PAULING JR. M.D.

1531 SOUTH BERETANIA STREET

HONOLULU, HAWAII 96814

TELEPHONE 991658

Saturday 25 September 1964

Dear Mom and Pop

I've been reading in the papers horrifying accounts of fires in Santa Barbara and Montecito. I hope you have survived these without damage. I read that Hutchins lost his house, so I suppose I would read about it if you had similar catastrophe. It seems to me time to develop better control techniques for these fires. As the suburbs move out into the hills more and more property damage results, more and more lives endangered. As I kept my branding iron fire going in the corral I worried about the ranch, too.

I will be delighted to see you here on the 10th of October or thereabouts. Please feel free to stay as long or short as you wish. Several people have asked about you: Tomi Knaefler, a Star-Bulletin reporter who wrote those several articles at the time of the Peace Prize; Gardner Jones, associate editor for the Advertiser who wrote the very positive "editorial about the same time; Gobey Black, a personality feature columnist for the Star-Bulletin, tones All wish to see you. Please tell me if you are willing to be seen. Are there any people here you would like to see especially? I will arrange a dinner party if you would like — in fact we can do as much or as little socializing as you would like.

Will you be coming back this way? I am tentatively planning to be in San Francisco 18-21 November plus a few days on one side or the other, depending largely on your plans. It was on this trip that I hoped to take the calves to market.

I certainly enjoyed seeing you and your nice new house. I enjoyed the ranch too, as always. Two days I spotted a sea otter enjoying dinner, once hearing the clapping of rock against shell first, then hunting for the otter, who was quite close in. Cute animal.

The new house looks good. I made a couple of tentative comments to Gus, who said he'd pass them on. The cattle truck has suffered from use. I left a number of comments in your trip book: The truck backfires badly on the over-run; it has a front-end shimmy or bounce starting about 48 mph, making 45 mph its top practical speed; there are multiple dents and scratches on the cab. Part of its trouble may be inadequate observance of the lubrication schedule; for $10-12 one can buy a pressure grease gun and a gallon of grease and in 15 minutes do the every-500-mile points, saving wear on kingpins, tire rods etc. It may be too late for this truck, wear having already, occurred.

All love to you. Be glad to see you here!

Linus