R. Laurraine Tutihasi, Oro Valley AZ

Thanks for mailing me the zine. I can understand why you can't afford to mail out too many copies. That's quite a book.

My condolences to you and Rosy on the loss of Merritt. Also to his widow -- must be rough.

I don't have a lot to say about the sports articles, since none of them covered my favourites -- figure skating and equestrian events such as dressage and show jumping.

Strange you should mentioned dressage as I'm renewing my acquaintanceship with Charles deKunffy, onetime GHLIII teacher and equestrian authority. (See my editorial.)

So you need a storage unit -- not enough room in your house for your vast fanzine collection? Our new house should be large enough for all our thousands of books. I'm thinking of thinning out the collection after we move (right now they're still mostly in boxes from our previous move), but we keep buying new ones.

Us too. Our storage unit holds all kinds of crap, but mostly, books -- and we got rid of 25 boxes when we left New Orleans!

Thanks for the heads up on Doc Rat -- looks good.

I much enjoyed Warren Buff's article, "Against the Graying of Fandom". He made a lot of good points. I have a number of younger fan friends, so I know there are a few younger fans entering all the time.

I'm probably just showing my ignorance, but I'm puzzled by his LoC. Do you mean to say that there are actually laws that make lynching legal? Sorry, I grew up in the northeast. I really would like to know. I didn't get very far searching on the Internet -- just more confused.

I greatly enjoyed the Lynchi trip report about Italy. I was there in 1970 but mostly only saw Rome. My parents have seen more, but I haven't been back since. I think one of their trips involved driving themselves around, but I could be misremembering. I recall another fan saying that Italians drove like maniacs and didn't bothering observing any traffic laws, but that
was quite a while ago. I do recall that being a pedestrian in Rome was pretty tricky. Someone made the remark that the safest way to cross a street in Rome was to find a group of nuns. I couldn't tell exactly when the Lynchi made the trip, but I assume it was in the last year or two. I winced every time they talked about food. Since discovering that I'm gluten-intolerant, it's become nearly impossible for me to have any Italian food unless I make it myself. There's actually a pizzeria in Phoenix that makes gluten-free pizza. It's good, but of course it's not the same. There aren't any in Tucson that I know of, but I plan to attend a gluten-free faire next weekend.

When my mother and I were in Rome, nearly everyone was on strike -- taxi drivers, hotel workers, etc. We found a driver to take us around; they're a cross between tour guides and taxi drivers. We went to Villa D'Este, which is outside of Rome. It's a beautiful place with lots and lots of fountains. We were supposed to go to Pompeii, but that didn't come off. There are certainly many reasons to go back to Italy one of these years.

I remember being at the Vatican but don't really remember much about the museum except that we were there. I recall not being able to take photos in the Sistine Chapel. I bought a bunch of slides of the place; it was quite cheap to do.