James Michener describes Mexican food

In the following passage, James Michener describes a meal at a Mexican restaurant in the small town of Centennial, Colorado in 1973, before Taco Bells dotted the landscape.

We turned east on Mountain and walked four blocks to a noisy restaurant called Flor de Méjico, and there again we were warmly greeted, this time by a robust Mexican introduced to me as Manolo Marquez. "We knew you'd be back," he told Miss Endermann. "Tonight the best in the house, on me."

He showed us to a table covered by a red-checkered cloth and a well-greased menu which Miss Endermann told me had been invariable for the past five years. "I hope you like Mexican food," she said.

"It's not common in Georgia."

"We'll introduce him to it, Manolo," she cried. "Three plates, with a sample of everything. And some Coors beer." She asked if I knew this Colorado beer, and I said no. "With Mexican food it's sort of heaven," she assured me.

The door opened and the black man I had seen on the street entered and came to our table. Miss Endermann kissed him, then said, "This is my friend and counselor, Nate Person. Not only a good barber but a sagacious one. He knows where the bodies are buried."

Person, a gray-templed man in his fifties, asked where I was from, and when I said Georgia he laughed. "That's a state not high on my list." 

"It's getting better," I assured him.

"High time," he said evenly.

"You must tell him everything you told me," Miss Endermann said, and Nate nodded.

I suppose it was a good dinner, but the items that faced me were so unlike what I was accustomed to in Georgia that it all tasted like a hot jumble. "The toasted thing is a taco," Miss Endermann explained. To me it was more like French-fried cardboard, and the enchilada and tamale seemed so nearly identical that I never did discover which was which. The stuffed pepper, called a chili relleno, was mostly fried cheese, but the salad was great. So was the small glass of pomegranate juice. And the Coors beer was, as she had predicted, "as light as a cupful of mountain water."

After we had finished the dinner, which Miss Endermann and Person gulped as if they hadn't eaten in weeks, I began to experience the most pleasing sensation. It was as if my stomach were in harmony with the world. "That must have been pretty good food," I said. "Tastes better now than it did going down."

"Join the club," Miss Endermann said. "Nate, remember that first time you made me try it? Thought I'd die."

                -  From James Michener, Centennial: A Novel (Random House, 1974) 

Journaling as confession

Between last night and this morning, I read Maria Boulding's introduction to Augustine's Confessions. I was impressed by one section called "What is Confession?", where she outlines three "layers of meaning" to the Latin words confessio (a noun) and confiteri (a verb), denoting three types of activity that Augustine engaged in as he wrote. 

First, he confessed his sin. Second, he confessed God's glory. Third, he asks God to give him words, and then he uses words and ideas he has learned in Scripture and uttered in prayer to speak back to God and for his readers.

This last type of confession "is a creative process", Boulding says. Just as the Holy Spirit "prays in us" when we don't have words (see Romans 8:6), so we co-create ourselves along with God as we make his creative word part of our spoken and written thoughts.

"Words... are essentially signs; and they reach their fullest meaning as servants of self-transcendence."

This has important implications for journaling as a spiritual exercise, which I have been learning to practice for the past two years I've been part of a men's group called Intercept.

Journaling lets us capture and process our floating thoughts, and rein and run with our angry, driving ones. In a sense it is a conversation between ourselves and God, through which we create meaning out of the sense impressions running past our ears and eyes and tongues and fingertips. Through which we turn ideas over and under until they fit into the shape of our life, and in very special cases, fill and expand and reshape that life.

Confessing didn't calm every one of Augustine's storms, but the process made him a more interesting person, and the writing of it brought that process to us so we could join the chorus, from whatever little cell we might be in.

(All quotes are from Maria Boulding, Introduction in Augustine, The Confessions, 2nd edition. Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, pp.24-25.)

Forrest and Mary Esther Forbes -- when life takes a left turn

 

Forbes family photo, left to right: Stephen Adelbert, Mary Esther, Forrest Dale, Esther Katherine ("Kathie")

This is the story of Forrest Dale Forbes and his wife Mary Esther. I first started researching their story because they worked briefly with the Duru people of Burma in the 1930s and 40s, but after researching more, I found their lives to be interesting in their own right, as an example of a family who took many twists and turns in their journey of faith.

 

Early years

Forrest was born on January 10, 1907 in Damascus, Clackamas County, Oregon. His father, Adelbert, was originally from Iowa and his mother, Lottie, was born in Kansas on the Oregon trail but reached Damascus four years later in 1880. Forrest had an older brother named Claude, who was nine years older, and when Forrest was three, they got a baby brother named Lyle. Sometime later, they moved to California, and when Forrest was six, his sister Madalene was born.

 

By 1920, when Forrest was 13, the US Census shows his family as living in Monrovia, a small orange-farming community near Los Angeles. After high school, he became a journalist and wrote for the Associated Press, eventually getting his own syndicated newspaper column.

 

Then he heard the gospel as preached by Paul Rader, a radio evangelist with a large church in Chicago, who also established a church called the Tabernacle in Los Angeles in 1929. Forrest was converted and went to Bible college. While he was studying there, he fell in love with a fellow student named Mary Esther Allen.

 

Mary Esther, a native of Riverside, California, was born on August 24, 1913. Her father Clarence was born in Canada and her mother Alice was born in England. Mary Esther had three older sisters, one older brother, and one younger brother: sisters Evalyn (born in 1901), Beatrice (born in 1907), and Charlotte (born in 1911), and brothers Chester (born in 1905) and Wilford (born in 1916).

 

Marriage and sending out

On January 22, 1932 in Los Angeles, Forrest and Mary Esther were married. Forrest was 24 and Mary Esther was 18. The officiating minister was Rev. Thompson Eadle, a Foursquare Gospel preacher associated with the Pentecostal evangelist Aimee Semple McPherson.

 

The following year, on March 4, 1933, Mary Esther gave birth to a baby girl named Esther Kathleen, nicknamed "Kathie". During this time, they also spent time witnessing, and regularly attended the Go-Ye Bible Class, an missions-focused adult Sunday school class at Paul Rader's Tabernacle led by George and Mary Berryhill and taught by Jennie Mitchell. One day, after Jennie challenged the class to send out missionaries from their own group, Forrest and Mary Esther volunteered. They were interested in the Lisu tribe along the borders of China, Tibet, and Burma, and so they started researching the Yunnan ethnic area of China. Their fellow class members pledged their support, and Paul Rader himself promoted their plans on his radio program, gaining donations for them from his listening audience.

 

In early 1935, they set sail for China. Once they arrived, Forrest wrote news articles for the Associated Press as a means of income. They continued writing prayer letters back to the Go-Ye class in Los Angeles. In one of these letters, they reported being on night watch against people who wanted to burn down their mission! During this time, their mission work included printing and binding Christian literature, such as the first volume of a book called the Grace Book. Later newsletters spoke of success as the danger passed.

A quick return

Their first stay in China turned out to be a short exploratory trip, likely after they found out that Mary Esther was pregnant. In any case, on May 8, 1935, they boarded a Japanese ocean liner in Hong Kong called the M. S. Asama Maru and headed back to the US. At the time, Forrest was 28, Mary was 21, and little Esther was 2. The voyage lasted almost a month. On May 29, they stopped in San Francisco, and on June 1, they landed in Los Angeles. Their address in Los Angeles was 1305 Waterloo Street, just two doors down from number 1307, the house of Jennie and Andrew Mitchell from the Go-Ye class.  On November 10 that same year, Mary Esther gave birth in Riverside to her second child, a boy named Stephen Adelbert -- the middle name came from Forrest's father.

Yunnan and other places

 

Records after this are sparse, but it appears that they went back to Yunnan and served there for several years. Also sent to Yunnan by the Go-Ye class were Mary's sister Beatrice and her husband Lester Van Meter, and Katherine Baerg.

 

The timeline is not clear, but after their first term in China, Forrest and Mary Esther went to the Holy Land, India, and Burma. They started working in the "remote Alpine section of Burma" in northern Kachin State. From there, Forrest wrote to the Go-Ye class, describing their contact with Mongolian (i.e. T'rung and/or Duru) pygmies who had been enslaved by Tibetan invaders. Again, it is not clear whether this was before 1940, or whether it was after World War 2.

Oregon and Chile

 

They must have returned to the States by 1940, when Forrest registered for military service. Around this time, they moved to Oregon, where Forrest was born, and Forrest started the Miracle Book Club, a program for children that met in the home of George and Edwina Cote, near Cedar Mill, Oregon. In December 1940, three local Christian small groups in Cedar Mill got together and asked Forrest to be their teacher. The resulting congregation met in the old Wesley Chapel rented from Burton Reeves, and became what is now known as Cedar Mill Bible Church.

 

Sometime later, the Forbeses must have gone on a mission trip to South America, because ship records show that on June 11, 1943, the S. S. Copiapo sailed for the US from Valparaiso, Chile, carrying Forrest (age 36), Mary (age 29), Esther (age 10), and Stephen (age 7). On July 18, the ship arrived in New Orleans and Forrest, Mary, Esther, and Stephen disembarked. Their address in the US at that time was listed as 6108 Southeast 92nd Avenue, Portland, Oregon.

 

In 1945, the church where Forrest had been teaching was incorporated as Cedar Mill Community Church (now called Cedar Mill Bible Church).

Burma and the boat back

By 1947, the war was over and Forrest and Mary Esther were in Burma. Forrest took a 600-mile trek through the Duru area in northern Kachin State along with a local Christian guide; according to Jack Wyrtzen, the people they met were living in trees. Then, just as they were starting to see ministry results, their plans were interrupted again when Mary Esther was diagnosed with cancer. Stunned and saddened, they boarded a boat back for San Francisco. On the boat however, they met a young couple named Fred and Lurabelle Annis, who were leading a Harvard-Brown expedition in Asia. As a result of their conversations, Fred and Lurabelle became Christians. After they got back to the US, Mary Esther found that, by answer to prayer, she had been healed of her cancer.

Fred and Lurabelle's story

 

A side note on Fred and Lurabelle Annis -- after arriving back home in the US, they talked about their newfound faith to their niece, Jane  MacRoberts, and she was converted the following summer at Jack Wyrtzen's Word of Life Camp, and the following year married the assistant camp director, Dick Reed, and the two of them later founded a Christian radio station in Liberia. Meanwhile, Fred Annis went to MIT for his Master's degree, and then he and Lurabelle came to Wyrtzen's camp and did some building projects. Then in February 1952, Fred went to Rangoon, Burma for two years as an architect supervising building projects for the US State Department. In the evenings, Fred and Lurabelle held Bible classes for young people there in Rangoon. Thus, as a result of Mary Esther's cancer, lives were changed both in Burma and in the US and Africa.

 

In Oregon again

On January 21, 1948, the Lowell Sun, a newspaper in Massachusetts, mentioned Forrest as a missionary who had just returned from Burma. That same year, Forrest published a biography of his friend, radio evangelist Jack Wyrtzen, called God Hath Chosen: The Story of Jack Wyrtzen and the Word of Life Hour. Both Forrest and Jack were active in Youth For Christ.

 

In July 1950, Forrest became pastor of Damascus Community Church in Oregon, taking over from Rev. V. A. Weir. He remained active in missions mobilization, and in April 1952, he spoke at the chapel of George Fox College (now George Fox University) in Newberg, Oregon as part of the second annual GFC mission convention. The student newspaper The Crescent mentions it in an article on 25 Apr 1952, and lists him as a former newspaper reporter and missionary in Burma, China and India -- it is unclear when he was in India.

 

Their daughter Kathie went off to Westmont College in Santa Barbara, California, where she met Richard Neil Carpenter. Rich joined the Air Force in 1952, and on August 28, 1953, the two were married in Damascus.

 

The year 1954 brought several changes for the Forbeses. That was the year that Jack Wyrtzen published part of their and the Annises' story in his book Leaping Flame: Youth Witnessing for Christ. (This book is one of the main sources for my account here.) Then, on November 27, Mary Esther's father died in Riverside, California, and that same month, Forrest stepped down as pastor of Damascus Community Church, succeeded by Guilford S. Martin.

Back to California

They moved back to California, probably to be closer to Mary Esther's family, and in 1960, Forrest and Mary Esther bought a house at 295 West County Line in Calimesa, Riverside County, which had been built in 1958 by H.E. Chillcot Sr. and Martha R. Chillcot. The following year, on January 28, their son Stephen, aged 25, married Joan E. Fee, aged 23, in Riverside.

 

Having started out as a journalist, Forrest never gave up writing and publishing. In 1962, he and his mother Lottie (born Lottie Maybee, later Lottie Forbes, but by this time Lottie Morris) published a short book on the history of their old hometown, where Lottie had first moved in 1880 at age 4. This 62-page booklet was entitled Days and Ways of Old Damascus, Oregon. Mary Esther drew a log cabin on the cover and other illustrations using a wash drawing process. It's fortunate that they wrote the book when they did, because three years later, in 1965, Lottie passed away. In 1968, Mary Esther's mother Alice also died.

 

On April 9, 1966 Forrest appeared in the Redlands Daily Facts, a local newspaper from Redlands, California, with the announcement that he would give a lecture on "The Valley of the Black Death". The article described him as a former missionary to Burma, China, and South America.

 

Forrest continued with his historical writing, publishing a 63-page booklet in 1975 entitled Days and Ways of Early Ceres, Stanislaus County, California. Along with his writing, Forrest opened a printing business. In 1976, he got a building permit to erect an eight-foot tall sign for "Calimesa Printing" at his house. His daughter, Kathie Carpenter, in her 2001 reprinting of Days and Ways of Old Damascus Oregon called him a "journalist, poet, author & printer -- missionary & minister".

 

On July 14, 1991, Mary passed away in San Bernardino County, California at age 77. Less than two years later, on May 14, 1993, Forrest also died at age 86. You can visit their graves at Desert Lawn Memorial Park in Calimesa, Riverside County, California.

 

Their two children have also passed away by since then. Stephen died in Yucaipa, San Bernardino County, California, at age 63 on September 24, 1999, and Kathie died at age 88 on October 13, 2021, having spent her last years in Bee Cave, Texas.

 

Why we write

 

The story of Forrest and Mary Esther Forbes strikes different people for different reasons. The children of Jennie Mitchell wrote about them because it was exciting for their mother's Sunday school class to send out one of their own couples as missionaries. The present-day iteration of the class, which was called the Go-Ye Fellowship for many years, and is now known as Global Grace Fellowship, is proud to list them as the first of many missionaries that they sent out, although they don't give many historical details beyond a name and a photo.

 

Evangelist Jack Wyrtzen wrote about them in 1954 as a dedicated young couple who influenced others such as the Annises even when their own plans were changed by health issues -- possibly returning the favor from when Forrest had written Jack's biography in 1948. Wyrtzen also plays on the theme of giving up or transforming worldly careers such as Forrest's journalism or Fred Annis's academic and government career into avenues for Christian service in one's free time -- this is in line with his purpose of inspiring more young people to follow suit.

 

Two different churches in Oregon mention Forrest as a founding or early pastor, and mention his credentials as a veteran missionary. The veteran missionary theme also comes up when newspapers announced that he was giving a lecture -- audiences would be lured in by the promise of stories from exotic places like China, the Holy Land, India, Burma, and South America.

 

It is interesting how much the Forbeses' story intertwines with young adult ministry and new technology -- Forrest was converted by Paul Rader, a radio evangelist and megachurch planter in the 1930s, and he and Mary Esther joined an adult Sunday school class which propelled them into foreign missions. When they came back during World War 2, the first ministry-related thing that Forrest started was a children's Bible club. I have to think that experiences with youth work in Los Angeles had something to do with this -- and also with Fred and Lurabelle Annis's Christian camp experience and the youth Bible classes they taught in Burma.

 

Another theme that comes up is writing and publishing. There would be no record at all of this fragmentary story if Forrest and Mary Esther had not written newsletters back to the Go-Ye class! Forrest carried on a newspaper career both in the US and in China with the Associated Press, in China he printed Christian literature, and in his later years he ran his own publishing business and published two books of local history. I only wish the two of them had written their own story for us beyond what I have been able to piece together here.

When my own journey took a left turn

As I said at the beginning, my personal interest in their story is because of their brief connection with the Duru. I also had the chance to study Duru while living in Thailand and Burma over the last few years, but I had to return to the US a year and a half ago because of my mother's cancer -- unlike Mary Esther's cancer, my mother's was fatal, but it did turn out for good in unexpected ways. 

This year, I have been helping with a children's program called Awana at my church and got to know several families that I wouldn't have known otherwise -- and I found out recently that Awana was founded by Lance "Doc" Latham and Arthur "Art" Rorheim, two members of Paul Rader's church in Chicago back in the 1920s-50s. I also met several people related to the Duru in my hometown, including Lungmi and Jinghpaw family just down the street from my dad's house. 

I will have to save my own stories for a later post or conversation, but my takeaway from the story of Forrest and Mary Esther Forbes is to not be discouraged if your journey takes a left turn. There are still many interesting things to do, people to meet, and stories to write, and you never know what will happen as a result.

 

Sources

 

Bruce, Virginia. 2007. Featured business: Cedar Mill Bible Church. The Cedar Mill News (November 2007). https://cedarmillnews.com/legacy/archive/1107/cedar_mill_bible_church.html

 

Damascus Community Church. 2022. Damascus Community Church -- A brief historical outline.

https://www.damascuscc.org/o/damascus-community-church/page/our-story--6

 

Familysearch.org (various historical records)

 

Find a Grave Memorial. n.d. Esther Kathleen "Kathie" Forbes Carpenter.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/233247218/esther-kathleen-carpenter

 

Find a Grave Memorial. n.d. Stephen Adelbert Forbes.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/49375975/stephen-adelbert-forbes

 

Forbes, Forrest Dale. 1948. God Hath Chosen: The Story of Jack Wyrtzen and the Word of Life Hour. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan. Reprinted in Joel A. Carpenter. 1988. The Youth for Christ movement and its pioneers. New York: Garland.

 

Forbes, Forrest Dale. 1962. Days and ways of old Damascus Oregon. Calimesa, CA: Damascus Road Press.

 

Forbes, Forrest Dale. 1975. Days and ways of early Ceres, Stanislaus County, California. Calimesa, CA: Calimesa Printing Co.

 

George Fox University Archives, "The Crescent - April 25, 1952". 1952. "The Crescent" Student Newspaper. 588. https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/the_crescent/588

 

Go-Ye Fellowship. 2014. History of Go-Ye Fellowship. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZbYFB_9mjE (source of the photo of Forrest and Mary Esther Forbes and their children.

 

Mitchell, Robert Bryant and Marietta Mitchell Smith with Howard Hugh Wade. 1988. Jennie and the song of the meadowlark. Weaverville, CA: Isaiah Sixty : One Publishing Co.

 

Reed, Jane and Jim Grant. 1968. Voice under every palm: The story of Radio Station ELWA. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House.

https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Station-Albums/ELWA-Voice-Under-Every-Palm-Reed-Grant-1968.pdf

 

Tang, Bai "Tom" and Michael Hogan. 2019. Historical-period building evaluation report: 295 W. County Line Road and 907 S. California Street. Prepared for Albert A. Webb Associates, for submittal to the City of Calimesa, California. https://yucaipa.org/wp-content/uploads/dev_svcs/Appendix_B1.pdfB

Tribute Archive. Richard Neil Carpenter. https://www.tributearchive.com/obituaries/12320436/Richard-Carpenter

Weddle, Linda. 2018. Celebrating Art Rorheim. https://www.awana.org/2018/01/11/celebrating-art-rorheim/

Wyrtzen, Jack. 1954. Leaping flame: Youth witnessing for Christ. Westwood, NJ: Fleming H. Revell.

 

Wyrtzen, Jack. 1991. Interview with Bob Shuster on October 5, 1991. Tape T2 in Collection 446, Wheaton College, Billy Graham Center archives.

https://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/exhibits/cgt/rader14xtra09.html

Forrest Forbes's second book, written with his mother Lottie, with illustrations by Mary Esther Forbes

The wisdom of Jespersen

 One book which I bought this past year was the autobiography of Otto Jespersen, A Linguist's Life (translated by David Stoner, edited by Arne Juul, Hans F. Nielsen, and Jørgen Erik Nielsen). I think I first came across Jespersen in 2011 when I was teaching English on Jinmen Island, Taiwan, and happened to find his book The Philosophy of Grammar (1924) in the upstairs floor of a department store among a lot of books imported from China. I only read a couple chapters, but I was warmed by his friendliness and lucidity around linguistic concepts. The following year, after I started studying linguistics at Payap University in Thailand, I read in R. M. W. Dixon's Basic Linguistic Theory (vol. 1, pp.87-88) that The Philosophy of Grammar is a classic. Dixon calls it "[a]n impressive synthesis of typological theory at that point in time. Asks important questions and provides thoughtful and thorough answers. It may appear a little outdated but it is still worthwhile examining what Jespersen had to say on virtually any topic."

So late this year as I was languishing in my room here at Old World Apples, hopped onto Jespersen's profile on Wikipedia and found out that he'd published an autobiography in 1938, and that it was published in English in 1995. I scoured the internet for copies, and the ones for sale were all way overpriced, but finally I found the Danish university press that had published it, and was able to order it from there at a reasonable price. When it got here, I found a real treat in chapter 16, "Retrospect". Maybe old scholars like Jespersen have had some of the tartness seasoned out of them, and what remains is devil-may-care wisdom and advice based on life experiences. Sample the following:

On accepting one's limitations (pp.246-247)

A song at a party at the time when I was writing my Fonetik, had this to say of me:

[Otto's a mighty clever chap.

With vigour undiminished

He labours on his heavy tome,

Which never will be finished.]

Time has shown this judgement to be rather hasty; I have completed both the phonetics and other big books -- although there are several plans which I have not carried out, and for which half-finished, often very copious, drafts lie in my drawers...

This is the nub of the matter, I suppose: we are all limited and Goethe's words [("It is in limitation that the master truly reveals himself")] are only true if they are taken to mean, "[it is in recognition of his limitation that the master truly reveals himself]".

On jotting down observations (p.247)

I am above all an observer; I quite simply cannot help making linguistic observations. In conversations at home and abroad, in railway compartments, when passing people in the street and on the road, I am constantly noticing oddities of pronunciation, forms, and sentence constructions -- but more in my younger days than now, when much of what was then striking is familiar to me. I have jotted down much of what I have picked up in that way and have developed quite a skill in catching language subtleties on the wing.

Reading with pencil in hand (p.247-248)

I constantly read with a pencil in my hand, and when there is something I find worth noting, I put a small dot in the margin. Afterwards these things, individual forms or whole sentences, are entered on slips of paper... At the moment when something is noted down I very often have no idea what I am going to use it for, or whether it will prove or show anything of interest; quite frequently a rule or connection becomes clear to me only when I compare a number of slips which may have been written at intervals of several years; thus a system which emerges from many separate observations has not, as in the practice of some philologists, been deduced beforehand (a priori) -- a method which can easily lead one astray.

...[N]otes on small slips are a good help, because with the greatest ease they can be arranged and re-arranged and put together from various points of view, until one finds the final system. From the start it is all elastic and flexible, until it is fitted into the straitjacket of a system.

From notes to slips to drawers to books (p.250)

So when any topic comes up for treatment, I already have a fair number of individual observations and ideas to build upon... One of my pupils is said to have once depicted my procedure like this: Jespersen gradually stuffs a quantity of slips into compartments in his drawers; when one compartment is full, a little bell rings, and another book is finished. Well, it is not quite so easy as that, and certainly not everything that has been collected is put into the final version. It is a matter of discriminating between what is essential and what is inessential, that may be where my strength lies... the secret [of finding good examples] lies precisely in the fact that... I have already gathered so many examples of every phenomenon dealt with that I can reject many of the less apt or useful ones, so that only the good ones are left.

The art of presentation (p.251)

One thing that is related to my ability to weed out material, instead of pedantically wanting to include everything, is... the art of presentation. "It reads like a novel" has been said in reviews of several of my books... But in my books I am not a mere popularizer deftly presenting things that others have thought -- my books contain mainly things that I have myself observed and thought, which I have endeavored to arrange for the reader in such a way that without too much effort he will grasp the broad and basic problems and see the main lines. Although I have avoided many of the technical terms that make the reading of many scholarly works so difficult, I hope that it will be said of me that I have not dodged difficulties.

Feel free to rearrange (pp.252)

As regards the final drafting, I shall first pass on a piece of advice which [Henry] Sweet gives in one of his books: don't try to save paper; paper is cheap. So of course write on only one side. But if you are not absolutely sure of the final order of the sections, always write each paragraph, however short, on a separate piece of paper. This gives opportunity for later expansions, additions, and rearrangements.

Writing habits (pp.252-253)

Form habits of work that are as regular and practical as possible.

Relieve the reader of much time-consuming labour. So quote in the best way: in the text itself as far as possible, so that his eye does not have to glance up and down while reading...

Do not immediately number the pages of the manuscript but wait until the whole of it is finished...

Do not reread what you have written straight away, but wait until next morning, when you are more detached and look at it with fresh eyes. It is good to begin one's daily stint by looking through the previous day's work; it prepares the mind for continuing. Morley Roberts and, as far as I recall, Anthony Trollope give novelists the advice not to finish in the evening by concluding a chapter, but to write just the beginning of the next one; then it will be easier to get into the mood the next day.

Communication as labor to enable understanding (p.254)

All this is bound up with my whole basic view of the nature of language as human labour to enable one person to grasp another's thought, feeling, and will. From this there necessarily follows the evaluative view with its two poles: easy to produce and easy to grasp. The best is that which, with the least effort, achieves the easiest, fullest, and most certain understanding. But from this all the rest follows, including the ethical task of working for an approach to this ideal.

Random notes for random thoughts (p.254)

I have not used the slips of paper only for single observations or quotations; on many of them I have written thoughts, whole reflections, or series of thoughts in outline. These may often have been evoked in an odd way through an apparently random link with what I am reading, not infrequently on quite unconnected subjects, in books, periodicals, or newspaper articles. A single word or phrase may arouse thoughts in my own special field or outside this.

Thinking-walks (p.254)

I have had many good ideas on solitary walks (thinking-walks my wife used to call them, and when I was much preoccupied with a topic, she knew that either I had to walk alone or, if she was with me, she had better keep quiet, whereas at other times our conversation could be lively enough). On such walks I always have slips in my pocket and write quite a lot on them. For instance, Novial came into being mainly in the parks of Ermelunden and Dyrehaven.

Notes at night (p.254)

I have also worked with slips of paper at night. In Jægersborg, when I shared a bedroom with my wife, I accustomed myself to writing thoughts down in the dark in pencil (not on ordinary paper slips, but on special ones of cardboard). As a rule these night slips contain only a single word which in the morning sets off a whole train of thought that might otherwise easily have been forgotten; it may also remind me of something to be done during the day. Here at Lundehave, where I have my own bedroom, I can of course switch on the light for such jottings without bothering anyone. Particularly while working on Analytic Syntax I would frequently wake up thinking of some sentence or sentence type: Have I included that one? And how is it to be analysed and symbolized? This led to disturbed sleep and was an important factor in the mental strain and exhaustion which was evident in the summer of 1936.

Habits of sleep and work (p.255)

In my younger days I used to read much at night and consequently got up late. During my period as a teacher, however, I combated this by always making sure that my lessons were in the morning. As a professor I had to get up early on the days I had lectures from 9 o'clock: I had to leave Gentofte station at a little after eight, and it took me twenty minutes to walk there. But I might not wake up properly until I had almost finished dressing, or during breakfast, or even while walking up the hill along Bernstorff Park. But on the days when I did not have to go to the University, I slept in late. I have long since shaken off these bad habits, and for many years now I have consistently kept to the rule that I do not work seriously after about eight o'clock or so, often indeed not after our evening dinner at about six. I get out of my bed without fail at half past seven, sit down to breakfast at eight, then read newspapers or the day's mail, then work until exactly eleven, and then walk until a quarter past twelve or thereabouts (only in exceptionally nasty weather is the walk curtailed); lunch at 12.30 is followed by a rest on the sofa... At 2, 2.15, or 2.30 I am up again and as a rule work until dinner-time, but nearly always with an additional walk of 30 or 45 minutes, when there are no afternoon visitors. I like if possible to walk my seven kilometres a day.

On answering letters (p.255)

A habit, not quite consistently adhered to, is on Sunday morning to answer those of the week's letters which have not required an immediate response. But I prefer to reply at once, because then one does not need to read them through again and can at once consign most letters to the waste-paper basket.

On daily reading (p.255-256)

For some years I made it a rule every day to read something, whether much or little, in one of the languages that are not exactly a picnic to me. Although there were days when it amounted to very little, it all added up, and in that way I managed to read most of the Odyssey, some of Plato, Calderón, Tolstoy, some Old Norse, the Gothic gospels with the Greek text, Holberg's Latin epistles, etc. It was fairly easy to maintain such a habit when life followed its daily routine, but once the habit had been broken by a longish journey, it was hard to get started again.

On forgetting (p.256)

I have written and published so much that I oftentimes cannot remember whether something about which I know I have reached conclusions has found a place in my published works, or whether it exists half-finished in one of my manuscripts for lectures or the like... 

It happens now and again when I dip into one of my earlier books, that I say to myself in amazement: What a lot you knew about that topic in those days. The reader may take this admission as he pleases, as an expression of vanity or as evidence of my poor memory.

On toning down criticism (p.257)

I am probably by nature of a critical cast of mind... Many of my best ideas have come to me when I have been reading or hearing the opposite views of others. In reviews and in books I have therefore often been polemical; it is my nature to put forward objections as sharply and definitely as possible and I may not always have expressed myself in as considerate a manner as possible. Here, however, I must thank my wife; she did not read much of my strictly scholarly works, but where possible, particularly in lectures, minor articles, and letters, she toned down over-sharp comments and persuaded me to see the justice of this. So I think I can rightly say that I have had, and continue to have, a good personal relationship with all those whose views I have publicly contradicted. (With perhaps a solitary exception.)

The fruits of progress (p.258)

I am happy that in my long life I have seen the introduction of telephones, bicycles, typewriters, fountain pens, cars, water closets, lifts, electric light, sound films, gramophones -- and not least: radio. And I am sure it is also a good thing that nowadays in Denmark we can eat tomatoes, bananas, and grapefruit, which were unknown in my youth. There are some points, after all, where the world progresses!