It might do him some good to come out here and fish for a month-there aren’t enough fish in Colorado streams to bother anybody.
In the meantime, he should avoid newspapers, authors, publishers, and editors.
August 23, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
[Concerning the arrival of a letter addressed to ‘ ‘Robert A. Heinlein, United States of America.”]
The empty envelope herein is for your amusement…It was delivered with no delay at all, being postmarked the 9th and reaching me on the llth, via surface mail. It need not be returned.
POLITICS
June 15, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
I am still getting no professional writing done and our household continues to be stirred up night and day by politics. I had intended to take no real part in this campaign other than donation of money, while Ginny devoted practically full time to it. But I find myself in the situation of the old retired fire horse downgraded to pulling a milk wagon-a school bell rings…and milk gets scattered all over the street! Last week I found myself, for the first time in a quarter of a century, presiding at a political rally-co-opted without warning at the last minute. I must admit that I rather enjoyed it. And I find myself pulled in on many other political chores and devoting perhaps half as much time to it as Ginny does.
EDITOR’S NOTE The preceding fall I had become much taken with politics-a group of us had started a “Gold for Gold-water ” campaign. We set up a Colorado Springs headquarters in a donated storefront, and gathered together campaign literature, buttons, and all the trappings.
Six of us agreed to take one day a week at the headquarters, and there were all sorts of meetings and speeches to be given. Robert gave his blessing to my endeavors and I was allowed to spend as much money as I thought we could afford.
He accompanied me to political dinner parties and other doings, and presently he could no longer stand the political inactivity, so he joined me. His activities were a revelation to me. Instead of simply charging the price for a book, he set up a goldfish bowl, and asked for contributions, getting more out of each customer. He set up a dinner party, at $50 a head, and sold it out. Some bought tickets, and returned those to him to sell again, and he sold them, sometimes two or three times each, garnering a lot of “Gold” for the campaign.
The telephone rang constantly, and he could get no copy written. We were fully involved in an already lost campaign. Eventually we recognized that, and made plans to leave for South America after voting on Election Day.
October 2, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
We still miss Shamrock but her little golden tomkitten is healthy and full of beans. Now I must run, get dressed, and rush to still another political dinner.
STUFFED OWL
April 15, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame
Ginny fetched home a stuffed owl and gave it to me. She was almost hysterical from self-panicking, laughing harder than I have seen her laugh since the time in Oct ’65 when we were blockaded on a 70 mph freeway in Utah by 5,000 milling sheep. For some years I have used a family cliche concerning useless gifts: “Just what I’ve always needed-a stuffed owl.”
So she gave me one. The cliche” dates back to my childhood. Do you remember Hairbreadth Harry, the Beauteous Belinda, and Rudolph Rassendyl the Villyun? Well, one Christmas about forty years ago Belinda gave Harry a smoking jacket that fitted him like socks on a rooster, and he gave her a stuffed owl-to which she said glumly: “Just what IVe always needed.”
So now I have just what I’ve always needed, and the stuffed owl (now named “Pallas Athena”) is perched facing me just beyond my typewriter.
READER
December 10, 1968: Lurton Blassingame to Robert A. Heinlein
…However, not all people love you. I had a call this morning from a frantic mother in Minnesota whose fourteen-year-old son had run away from home for the third time. On his desk she had found your name, care of me. He has read all your books and she thinks he may be out to find you. Before taking off he had gone through his mother’s purse and his father’s store, so he has about $2,000 on him.