It also seems that my mother met him in my favorite bookstore. I think this is just a way that showed how much he and I loved books. I remember sitting in this bookstore, which had a fireplace, reading books in all sorts of languages, and that it was OK to do this. The books in the store smelled so good. Oh, my memories of this place are what I use to compare all other bookstores. They just don't make them like they used to....
Anyway, my mother recently found this letter from him... written in 1978. And it just made me miss him. I asked him to marry my grandmother over sushi once, he said he did not think she would have him... I think he should have asked anyway. I think he wished he had.
My mother would go over to his writer hovel and sit and talk over bad instant coffee while he smoked a dangerous number of cigarettes and my brother and I played in the courtyard... we hated that he smoked, or at least I did... so I used to flush his cigarettes down the toilet... after we moved away from him and after many years of feeling bad that I did this to him... I sent him a letter... apologizing. He replied and told me not to worry about it...
WARNING - it may get a bit gross for some.... I, however, think it is funny...
because the plumbing and sewage system was so bad where we lived that he would just flush the toilet again, the cigarettes would swirl back up, he would let them dry, flick the turds off and there they were almost good as new.
Maybe I like the story because I do really miss him.
