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Wilderness Road Branscomb, Calif. 95417

Feb. 17, 1976

Dear Jack,

   It has been a while since I wrote to you or heard from you.  May you be prospering toward heaven wherever you are or whatever you are doing.
   I moved inland from that little town of Westport where I lived on the coast, 12 miles into the redwoods of the coastal range.   It is Beautiful here and a high valley with a river running thru it and beautiful people, ladies first of all, children and even the men.  Nature seems to drive out the wild beast from the heart and then some love can grow for others and the world, so it seems.   So I am happier than I knew before that you got out of Chicago, as a character in Jack London said:  "What do you want, Martin Eden, i;n these sick cities of men, go back to your sea and ships."  And so  you went back to your country and I found  one of my own.
   Still working on the novel I began in 1973.  It is 1400 pages of unpruned chaos.  Yet I hope for it.  I want to call it Miss Amerika.  I live in a plastic dome in the redwood forests I made from bent saplings.  But presently I have the luxury of a cabin because the lady owner is vacationing in Wyoming.  Wish you were here for a talk, oh Sage.
   Of Willie Penrod:  He got a chapter of his novel in The New American Review which paid him $50 (oh tem brevis - as you might say).  That was about a year ago.   I haven't talked