It has begun. I have passed the scrawny check in clerks and the politely distrustful guardians of the Security Charade provided by the American Little Theater Melodrammer Guild. I have walked the long halls, pad the luggage fee, and found the Gateway to the Getaway. I spent the night folded in a small chair like an overgrown grade-school child, knees against chin and elbows withdrawn. At dawn I will have chased the sunrise 3,000 miles in a head-on collision course and will face it while my own people are still deep in a dark slumber. By noon, I will be among my own tribe again in Silver Spring.

Wish me well, dear Maw. I shall return a better man, or a little hoarse, or both, before the turn of the centaury!!