Grumbles from the Grave (35 page)

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The Heinleins had many cats over the years; this one is Taffrail Lord Plushbottom, in the early 1980s.

January 12, 1957: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Pixie is dying . . . uremia, too far gone to hope for remission; the vet sent him home to die several days ago. He is not now in pain and still purrs, but he is very weak and becoming more emaciated every day—it's like having a little yellow ghost in the house. When it reaches the stage of pain, I shall have to help him past it and hope that he will at last find the door into summer he has looked for. We are pretty broken up about it . . . we have become excessively attached to this little cat. Of course, we knew it had to be when we first got him and I would much rather outlive a pet than have the pet outlive us—we're better equipped to stand it. Nevertheless, it does not make it any easier . . .

March 23, 1959: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Polka Dot had her kittens on St. Patrick's Day—like this: Ginny and I had been standing almost heel and toe watches as Pokie has not been at all well during this. About one o'clock in the morning I was up, Ginny had just gone to bed. Pokie comes dragging herself into my study, all cramped up in labor. So I held her paw for about an hour, whereupon she had one tortoiseshell female—Bridey Murphy. For the next three hours she has lots of trouble, so we get her vet out of bed and he comes over. He gave her a shot of pituitary extract; shortly she starts to deliver another one—a black and white male (Blarney Stone); poor little Blarney didn't make it . . . hung up in delivery, dead by the time we could get him out, although as lively as could be as he came part way out. And Ginny got her hand terribly bitten (Ginny screamed but didn't let go . . . and the cat didn't let go either). About dawn the three of us and Pokie went to the hospital and she had a Caesarean section for the third and last (Shamrock O'Toole, another tri-colored female, a close twin of Bridey). About 8 a.m. we fetched mother and daughters home, Ginny having had only a nap and myself no sleep at all. All three are doing fine now and the kits have doubled in size or more in six days. The thing that impressed me the most about the whole deal was the surgery—aseptic procedure as perfect as that used on humans, utterly different from animal surgery of only twenty years ago.

April 10, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Things have been confused and this is late. First we had kittens. Then Shamrock turned out to be the kind of mother who holes up in a tavern while her brats slowly freeze in the car, i.e., she takes vacations from the kittens without warning, as long as twenty-four hours, which finds us, Ginny especially, down on our knees feeding formula to kittens with a doll bottle that holds just an ounce. Then some Icelanders came to town, guests of the State Department, and I, as a member of the Air Power Council, was drafted to entertain them. Whereupon Ginny decided to give a dinner party for all of them, a dinner of some twenty people, at the drop of a hat. Fine time, but it killed three days, what with preparations, cleaning up, and recovering. Then the superintendent of the Naval Academy, a classmate of mine, came to town and we did it all over again—and had a blizzard. During which the wings of Ginny's new greenhouse came down under the snow load. Not much dollar damage and no plants lost, but Ginny was sad and it was quite a nuisance. I had been dubious about the design when I saw it first and had ordered modifications to beef it up, but the mechanics had not done it as yet.

Then the galley proofs on
Stranger in a Strange Land
arrived and that killed three days of the time of each of us; it's a long book. Ginny has just taken them to the post office and I am now writing to you a letter that should have gone days ago.

May 20, 1962: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

The new kittens are two weeks old and fat and healthy. A hawk or an owl got Ginny's ducks.

April 17, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

No more news here, save that Shammie, immediately following the adoption of her latest litter last Sunday, at once went out and set a new crop—so we should have more kittens ca. 17 June. A busy body, that one—thirty-one kittens so far and she has just turned five.

August 16, 1967: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Both Ginny and I are temporarily physically debilitated and emotionally depressed; we lost our little tomcat. He has been gone one week now and must be assumed to be dead. It is barely possible that he is out tomcating after some female and living on the land—but it is extremely unlikely. Two or three days, yes—a full week, no. A bobcat, a fox, a raccoon, an automobile. Sure, he was just a cat and we have lost cats many times before. But, for the time being, it hurts and keeps us from sleeping and leaves us emotionally unstable. Ginny continues to work hard, although she is not sleeping at all well—me, I'm so damned short on sleep that I can hardly type and can't concentrate.

PROBLEMS

December 18, 1950: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

The novelette I planned to write as soon as the Puddin' story (enclosed) for
Senior Prom
was out of the way has been jeopardized by the headlines as it has a historical tie-in which calls for World War III holding off for a little while at least. I am shelving it and will start immediately on the next boys' novel for Scribner's—and I'll write it so that the above point is not material! I will complete it as rapidly as possible because of those same headlines. A purely personal and selfish note in the present turmoil is that I need, somehow, to complete this [Colorado Springs] house as rapidly as possible so that I will be ready for whatever comes. Mrs. Heinlein may be called up at any time; she has already received correspondence about it—and one married female reservist here in town has already been called up ahead of her husband, so that we know the threat is real. I myself must have a minor operation before I can possibly pass the physical examination, but I hope to be able to get around to that before very long. Two of my brothers are now in uniform and the third is likely to be called up soon—and I might as well get ready for anything. In the meantime, I intend to turn out copy and lots of it as long as possible.

April 7, 1951: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Just at present any proposed work brings a feeble response. I am in a very rundown condition and have been and may still be on the ragged edge of nervous breakdown. I had purposed spending a couple of months or a bit more supervising the completion of my house, doing some of the work myself as a therapeutic measure, then when finished, taking a look at the war news and making up my mind as to whether I was morally obligated to go at once back into laboratory work rather than continue with writing. Ginny is in reserve; if and when she gets called up, I don't want to be tangled in contracts I can't shuck off—I want to be in research that will help to win the war as quickly as possible and thereby bring her home again. (I myself cannot possibly pass the physical exam; laboratory work is all I'm good for.)

March 1, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

. . . We are all well again—even the cat, as I finally got the big black tomcat that had been beating him up. Ginny woke me one morning and said that the black tom was out front. I hurried into robe and slippers, loaded my Remington .380 pistol, and went out. Got him with the first shot, fortunately, as he was moving and I wouldn't have gotten a second. Had him buried and was back in bed in under twenty minutes. A sad task, but Pixie was so crippled up that I don't think he could have survived another beating—and I prefer my own cat to a feral one.

October 8, 1953: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I tried to keep the letter factual in tone; if undue emotion has crept into it, you may charge it off (this is private to you) to the fact, among others, that ---- without consulting us, gave us as financial references all around Colorado Springs—and that Ginny was annoyed by telephone calls demanding to know when ---- was going to settle her bills. And other matters better left unsaid.

December 11, 1964: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

We have a new phone number—UNLISTED—so please write it down here and there. Ginny has wanted this for years to put a stop to fan calls at all hours. I must admit the quiet is welcome.

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Robert and Virginia with Arthur C. Clarke in Sri Lanka.

January 9, 1968: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I am returning Art Clarke's article as you asked in your note on the face of it. I take it that Spectorsky's [a
Playboy
editor] request was made to you this time rather than direct to me. He makes this request of me almost every month; I have long since quit answering these little notes. The first one was several years ago and concerned a short story by Fred Brown—quite a good one and I wrote a nice plug for it, which Spec published.

It was a mistake; I should have ignored it. I've been bombarded with similar requests ever since. Quite aside from the time such free work would require, correspondence is the bane of my existence and the major interference with my working time; I've no wish to add to it by writing letters to editors. And it is indeed "free work" that Spec wants; he is soliciting unpaid reviews from well-known writers.

But, hell, I might go along with it if that were all there is to it—
Playboy
is a number one market and it wouldn't hurt me to grease Spec a bit. But here is the trouble: I will not under any circumstances write anything unfavorable about any of my colleagues—and some of the stuff Spec asks me to comment on stinks. This one by Art Clarke is a dilly.

But the last request concerned a story by ----. I'm on good terms with ---- and intend to stay that way—but, had I written in as ---- asked me to, the letter would have read: "Dear Spec, You should be ashamed to have printed it and ---- should be ashamed of having written it."

So what should I do, Lurton? Pick out only the ones I can honestly praise and ignore the others? Or do as I have been doing and never comment on the work of my colleagues?

CHAPTER XIV
STRANGER

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Stranger in a Strange Land
became one of the most influential novels of our century. Heinlein began sketching out the idea for
Stranger
in 1949, but it took him until 1961 to be satisfied enough to write it.

Valentine Michael Smith is the only survivor of the first expedition to Mars. He is brought up by Martians, knowing nothing of Earth's culture, but well-educated in Martian ways by the ancient and wise race there. Now the second expedition has found him and returned him to Earth. He has never seen another man—or a woman.

He is confined to a hospital at first. But a nurse frees him and takes him to wise old Jubal Harshaw, where he quickly learns and adapts. There he demonstrates Martian powers—making things or people vanish, levitation, transmutation, etc. He makes all there his "water brothers" and teaches them to "grok." Then he sets out to bring his message to all, through what seems to be a new religion.

Some object. He is fatally shot. But he has learned on Mars to survive after his body dies, as he proves.

June 20, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I am writing every day but, frankly, the copy stinks. This novel may involve several rewrites, followed by a decent burial.

Editor's Note: In early 1949, Robert was searching for a theme for the short story "Gulf" which he had promised to John Campbell. During the course of the discussions, I suggested to him that it be a story about a human being raised from infancy to maturity by a race of aliens. This notion arrested him, but he thought it an idea which required more room than a short story afforded. However, he went into his study and wrote for some hours—fourteen single-spaced pages, mostly questions to be answered. That was the beginning of
Stranger in a Strange Land
.

July 16, 1952: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Yes, I am still having trouble with that novel. Trouble is all that I am having—with the story itself and trouble with my surroundings. I have lost almost a month to houseguests, Arthur C. Clarke followed by the [George O.] Smiths—and now we are about to spend a week in Yellowstone and Sun Valley, leaving tomorrow. I could cancel this trip, but there are reasons why it is desirable not to cancel it. Furthermore I hope that a few days away from a constantly ringing phone will help me to straighten out this novel in my mind. (Sometimes I think that everyone in the country passes through Colorado Springs in the summer!) When I get back, I expect to have to go to the hospital for another operation. All in all, entirely too many days this year have been eaten by the locusts. My intentions have been good. I have not been idle—far from it! But I haven't accomplished much.