Yeah, =M=, my rememberator had a bit of a glitch in it, there. And the eruption of Krakatoa was in 1883, rather that 1833, as I goofed again while trying to correct some of my earlier information.

I really recommend to anyone who has seen any of the "Frankenstein" movies that you dig up a copy of Mary Shelley's novel and read IT. It's a lot deeper and more thoughty than one might suspect from the Gothic horror story that most people assume it is. It IS that, but it's so much more. The scenes in which "Adam" tells Dr. Frankenstein of his experiences of self-discovery after wandering out of Dr. F's laboratory, and his "education" while living in a woodshed and listening to the conversations of the family living in the house are a real tour de force for any writer, especially a girl barely out of her 'teens when it was published.

Boris Karloff did get some of the sensitivity and pathos of "Adam," especially in the final scenes of "The Bride of Frankenstein." I'm sure he must have read the book. "Adam" wasn't a "monster," he was a sensitive human being with great potential for good, even if he was patched together out of spare parts—and had he not been rejected by everyone, especially his creator.

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I've had a somewhat similar experience, Ebbie.

Some years ago, my wife and I were out in the Hoh rain forest on Washington State's Olympic Peninsula. I was lumbering around on crutches, so while Barbara went down the path to look at the curtains of moss she'd heard about, I stayed pretty close to the parking lot—beside a huge tree—Douglas fir, I was told, but very old and almost as big as a redwood!

After I had stood there for a while, communing with Nature, I had the strangest feeling that that huge old tree was somehow aware! And it was aware of me standing there!

It was a most strange feeling. It occurred to me that, to that tree, my entire life was as transitory as a bird landing on one of its branches, sitting there for a few seconds, then flitting off again.

Eerie sensation. But not at all unpleasant.

Communing with Nature, indeed!

Don Firth