PAUL: I fully appreciate the situation between Mom and Pop as you described it to me, and as Saul later did in his tape.

It actually is an old situation — they've sort of knocked each other around with these arguments for a long time, years now. What makes them more acute now is that in contrast to before, when there were a few other things like family, etc., to diversify some of their time, they now have no other interests —this should not be, of course— but each other, and these differences of opinion, and/or faults in each other, are greatly magnified through being isolated against a background of nothing else but each other, and the words become sharper. And of course, the old frustrations are still there – even in the beautiful surroundings. And without the sponge of children, grandchildren etc., to sop up some of the frustrations, they build up and then they take it out on each other. Theoretically, and ideally, their new surroundings should to a great degree provide the needed diversification and the new interests, and maybe, as you say in one of your letters, the low point has been reached and a turnabout is in the process of taking place.

You mentioned that —in your last letter from them and also in your last phone conversation with them — they sounded good, strong, etc. My last phone talk with them was the same – so the addition of the most recent letter I received from them — I was very encouraged. I haven't heard from them in almost three weeks now. I take that as a good sign —that they are so taken up with their surroundings that they have no time to write, nor the great urge to bemoan their plight on paper— as some of Pop's early letters did.