Stanford 

Apr 18, 1962: Letter from Sam in Beautelsbach Germany to Parents

Dear parents,

Here comes that letter I owe you. But first, thanks for both letters – mom's of a few weeks back, and John’s of yesterday. I was also glad to have seen Paris at your side, big mom – I think I got as much out of the trip, in enjoyment– and learning– wise, as I possibly could have. Nice English, huh? 

My roommate and this slob picked me up an hour late at my hotel, and we headed off in the morning drizzle (which soon turned into pretty heavy rain) for Geneva, where we spent the night at a cheap hotel (the youth hostel was closed for repairs) and the next day seeing what we could of that extraordinarily dead city. The conferences were all closed, and it rained quite a lot, so we drove to Chamonix that evening instead of spending another night in Switzerland, as previously planned.

So we drive into this valley, and we keep going, and the mountains become higher and more vertical at every bend, and then we see the lights of Chamonix in the distance, and everybody was snowed, me especially, because Zermatt immediately came to my mind. The valley is long and narrow, with Chamonix only one of several towns on its floor. The Alps, if you can believe it, rise even more sharply from the floor than at Zermatt, giving one a nice cozy protected feeling. The weather was clear, and all the lifts were lit on the peaks – nice effect. The youth hostel, from the front, looks like a barn (smells like one too, for that matter), but inside France went all out: a warm kitchen and dining room, a playroom with TV, a ski room, etc., etc. Lots of French girls out to catch a few rays, too, but that’s another issue. The beds themselves left lots to be desired, and there were, naturally, no bathing facilities, but one has to learn how to live European, I guess. We spent seven days in the hostel: the total cost for me, including meals, bed, and a week’s ski pass on all the lifts, was about $30 - $17 of those went for the pass. And this was an expensive hostel!

OK, you object: you say the snow was lousy, the crowds were too big, the weather was grubby. Wrong on all three counts. There were 5 m of snow on the runs, fresh powder, scarcely two days old (more snow than they had for the world championship last February.  The longest line I encountered was six people (the ski season officially closed April 1), and the weather was crystal clear. My roommate had only skied once before, so the slob and I left him on a bunny hill. (all the girls were there, so he didn’t object violently), and headed for bigger doings.  Now I start getting bubbly and boring John, but you understand.

Chamonix is about 3500 feet above sea level, which is starting off rather well. My week's pass was good for over 50 lifts, of all kinds, which completely surround the valley – we could go from peak to valley, taking lifts back to the peaks, in a U-shaped tour of the area, not repeating a run, and the trip would last all day. One lift in particular, the first of a system of three which services the Mount Blanc glacier (I sent you a postcard of the glacier, I think), is the lift with the highest vertical climb in the world, reaching the highest point to be reached in Europe (so they say): we rode in this teleferique 9184 feet straight up – hanging loose on this wire the entire way – reaching a height of almost 13,000 feet. The view was just too much: behind us, the great bulk of Mont Blanc rose across the glacier, and before us the French Alps stretch for miles. Wow. the next lift on this chain takes you across the glacier in one big swoop, and the third deposits on the side of Mont Blanc. The ski back to town takes all day.

My roommate twisted his ankle, so he sat through the rest of the week, reading and talking to the girls (I think he was secretly glad, since he never did have the ski bug to begin with).  We took some time out with him to hike to the Mont Blanc tunnel, to see how it was coming along. Almost finished, in my estimate. Well enough of this. I guess you get the idea – nothing in Europe that I have seen can compare with those Alps. I plan on visiting them with Jim later in the summer. The last day, the slob sacrificed himself, spraining his ankle in deep powder. 

We left that evening for Geneva, got got some painkillers, spent the night in the youth hostel (which had just opened), and drove the next day up the Rhine valley, around the Schwarzwald, and into Stuttgart, where the slob got some crutches at the US Army Hospital. We were quite the sensation when we hit the Berg, I must admit: all three of us were black as black, dressed in ski clothes, snow on the car (we had carefully piled it on for the impression), and so on. Very nice entrance. The slob has since recovered completely, the big faker.

You don’t know how great it was to see the gang again, and here all the adventures – from Madrid to the upper cataracts of the Nile. Several hit Greece too. Professor Williams, our geography professor, was also on hand to greet us. He and his wife make a sweet, quiet old couple (he is 55, and must retire next year), in contrast to the Mazours (as far as quiet goes, at least), they have been around, too, and he seems to know his subject. It will be, for me, much the most interesting course I will have taken here. We are studying Thomas Mann in Lit. (Catch my description? Guess where I got it), and German plods on. Well, we had four days of classes, and then hit the road for a three day weekend. I spent it with three other boys in my car, driving north along the Neckar valley to Heidelberg (almost required for German tourist), seeing Mad Ludwig's Castle in Ludwigsburg, of all places on the way, then southeast to Karlsruhe, across the Rhine and further south to Strasbourg, back across the Rhine, through a pretty pass to the Black Forest to Tübingen, and north to Stuttgart - A real satisfying trip. We all agreed we learned some of the area in which we live.  Then back to classes for four more days: today is the fourth. 

In preparation for our 10 day Berlin trip, which is coming up soon, we heard two lectures, one on German history in general (auf Deutsch), and the other by Leonard (Child of the Revolution) on Russian history. I assume you have heard of this guy, being well read and all that - it was a very fine talk, and he could really answer the questions. I remarked on how wonderful it would have been if he had taught German history last quarter, whereupon another student chimed in ”Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if Mazour had taught history last quarter?” That, I am afraid, is the general attitude towards Mazour's lectures - entertaining, but ganz leer of content. Oh well, tuition is free. This Berlin trip, by the way, is really being plugged, both here and at home. But I’ll reserve judgment. 

Last night, to round off the week, I heard Bach's Passion Musik nach dem, Evangelischen Matthaus in Stuttgart. Boy, did the music makers ever stink. And during the middle of the first part, they dropped the piano (or at least it sounded so) during a recitative, which caused all kinds of hell. Still, I now have John’s and Matthew's Passions under my belt, so I’m not complaining. At least the German accents were authentic.

Tomorrow morning I head for München with a gang for a four (special) day Easter pilgrimage to the city. Most of the kids are going to Vienna, but I’m saving it for the summer – it takes too long to drive there, anyway. I am just young enough to see the beauty of the city and its contents without being affected by its ugly recent history, but I will of course visit the gas chambers, as that is almost a requirement for Stanford, as it rightly should be. I will probably stay with a family of a kid on the berg which lives right outside the city limits – the is the foreign policy editor of the Süddeutsche Zeitung, a liberal thinker on a typical (but very good) German newspaper - third largest circulation in Germany, I think. He also likes flutes, so I have an in. By the way, I have bought lots more music (mostly in Heidelberg), but still from the same gang – Bach, Mozart, Händel, and Vivaldi. Now that the weather is nice, I get in about an hour a day, playing in the tuillies. Not a bad life up here, when you get around to it.

Jim Haas just notified me that he will be unable to go to Stanford in France next fall, because of the trouble I told you about in my own, bland way. This means we will leave for the States at the end of the summer, taking the charter plane he had promised me. (thuis leaving me without transportation home), and leaving me stuck with this car, which we had planned on giving to him on condition that he would sell it at Tours.  OK, What do I do? My preference is to take a boat (because I do have a lot of weighty objects, such as books and skis), with my car on it, arriving in New York around 15 September; drop to see Mike Drooker for a day; drive west with some other students heading for Stanford, arriving just in time for school to start. This way I see Len obviously and I have a car on campus. If you think I don’t need the car, I could sell it in California for a good price – I would probably come out even, considering what it cost me here, the shipping costs, and the savings on the drive across the country. If you don’t approve, let me know, and I’ll see if I can give the vehicle to someone else on a foreign campus to handle - but this is tough. I want to take a boat, however – the few days I miss in Europe don’t really count that much, in the long run. Anyway, Jim leaves on 13 September, so I would be on my own from then on. 

Goodbye, recover quickly, and eat no fats.

Sam. 

PS. I am so healthy. I make myself sick.