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20

About this time, I decided on the spur of the moment to go to Chautauqua one evening to surprise Mother as well as to hear "Martha" again. It proved to be a rewarding experience in several respects. Mother was delighted to see me. "Martha" was as melodious as ever--I always kidded Willie that "Martha" was composed by her "grandfather" because Flotow is a family name and, in fact, there may actually be a distant connection between Friedrich von Flotow and Willie's ancestors. On the drive up and back, my mind was occupied with many thoughts akin  to those of my noon reverie beside the lake covered in the previous paragraph. Returning home after the opera, an orange half-moon hung close to the horizon as I sped along the Westfield ridge near midnight. Coming through the trees, it looked like a fire in the distance. It was just another serving of beauty to fill my cup to overflowing.

The following Saturday Bab and I drove to Chautauqua (which Bab called "Metauqua") to bring Mother home after her six weeks stay up there. Bab was a darling on the whole trip and a fine little traveling companion. We took her to see "The Bedroom Fish" in front of Norton Hall and she was delighted as always with it. I decided it would be a fine idea to rent a cottage at Chautauqua during the 1933 season and have Willie and the children stay up there a month. And so we returned "Bomba" to our home in Erie where she was to spend five weeks before going to Buena Vista. She saw a great change in Rog, who was more adorable than ever and tipped the beam at about twelve pounds. Mother said to me, "Fo, I could die happy right now because I could go with the picture in my mind of your perfect little family. Bab is so lovely and Willie is better than I've ever seen her before. And that beautiful little baby! And then your dear little home here. It seems to me that now you have about all anyone could dream of wanting that's really worthwhile." And it was true. We had the foundation for a life that would be hard to beat. It was just up to us to make it a reality.

The next day Willie and I took advantage of Mother's babysitting to rent a canoe on the Peninsula and paddle our way over some of the ponds. And that night we were thrilled by the sensational meteor display as earth was passing through the great August meteor belt. Standing in the yard looking at the sky, the utter vastness of it all made me gasp. The stars are so far away that they never seemed real until you turned your head straight skyward and concentrated on them. Then the thoughts come, staggering the imagination. I felt very small and self-important as I looked at them.

Soon after this, I drove to Cleveland on business one day and had a lot of time to think about my current situation and to analyze my assets and liabilities as I drove along alone. My appraisal of my resources follows and I believe was a reasonably accurate one and while it sounds anything but modest, the subsequent list of liabilities fully offset that aspect: