Frank's Niece!

[Cathy]

Cathy,

Delightful to see you pop up again! I hope everything is going very well for you. I greatly admire your continued search for understanding, I can't help but think your relationship with your Aunt Alice contributed to your love of understanding. I like your Aunt Alice stories very much and she is exactly how I always thought she would be. As a child I wished for a wise person who could teach me about the world, who could answer the questions I always had from all the books I read.

Best wishes,

Mike

Thank you so much Mikee! Yes, I am doing much better now, thank you.I also admire her now, just for the things she has over came coming to this country and being a success. I realize now how much she did teach me unknowingly to me at the time. I don't know how I would have thought about things if I knew who she really was. Maybe I was lucky not knowing in a way, because now when I think back on the conversations, either one on one or as a whole family, I understand so much more now. But if I knew who she really was, I might have ignored all the conversations thinking she was an arrogant bore or something. This way I can always love her as my kooky dear Aunt Alice. But in all reality, it was Uncle Frank who taught me understanding. He would say, be patient and listen, you will understand, if not today, you will one day soon. He was more of the laid back soft spoken type and when he would talk, I would listen...basically because he didn't talk much. So I always wanted to hear what he had to say, and it was always worth listening to. But you are right...I had someone right there who could have taught me so much about life and questions I may have had...and I didn't even know it. Maybe its my time to learn now from the past and not then. Hope you have been well Mikee and life is treating you good ~Cathy~

[Brant Gaede]

Meow.

[Cathy]

Meow.

LOL! Hi Brant!

[Brant Gaede]

Meow.

[Cathy]

Meow.

I can see why it drove my mother insane ; )

[Brant Gaede]

Your mother? How about Ayn?

--Brant

the mystery revealed

[Cathy]

Your mother? How about Ayn?

--Brant

the mystery revealed

I think Ayn Rand/Aunt Alice would have liked it...it would have made her feel at home. And she probably would have answered back

[Cathy]

file:///C:/Users/cathy/Pictures/Report_of_Guardian_Ad_Litem_11.16.83%20(3).pdf

[Cathy]

please tell me how to get a PFD file on here.

[Cathy]

http://file:///C:/Users/cathy/Downloads/Report_of_Guardian_Ad_Litem_11.16.83.pdf

[Brant Gaede]

please tell me how to get a PFD file on here.

Michael will come along in the early morning hours.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Cathy,

I sent you an email.

Michael

[Cathy]

Cathy,

I sent you an email.

Michael

Ok thank you Michael!

[Cathy]

^{Happy thanksgiving everyone!}

[Brant Gaede]

^{Happy thanksgiving everyone!}

Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Cathy!

--Branto

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Hugs and kisses for you and yours, Cathy.

Lots of happiness this Thanksgiving.

Michael & Kat

[Selene]

^{Happy thanksgiving everyone!}

Happy Thanksgiving to you too, Cathy!

--Branto

OK - I already took my eye chart test!

http://www.disabled-world.com/artman/publish/eye-chart.shtml

[Guyau]

Cathy, I came across this interesting letter of your aunt written in August 1944, and I’d like to share here with all a portion of it. The letter is to a man named Gerald Loeb, who was an executive, a budding writer, and friend of Frank Lloyd Wright. Mr. Loeb and Ms. Rand corresponded for six years.

Rand to Loeb, replying to earlier letters from him:

. . .

Your problem of how to meet a worthwhile woman is a problem that I have faced all my life, though not in the same terms. I was fortunate enough to meet Frank early in life, so my quest was not of a romantic nature, but all my life I have been troubled by the fact that most people I met bored me to death and I wondered where and how one can meet interesting people. I knew such people existed . . . . I am enough like Roark to be able to exist quite happily in solitude, and I had Frank, which is the greatest mercy God has ever granted me (and I feel that without being religious), but I do like people—when they are really human beings—I love to meet interesting minds and exchange ideas and feel an interested affection, not contempt, for those around me. So, you see, in a way, it was the same problem as yours—though I wanted only to find friends, and you seek more than that. The practical steps, however, would be the same, the question—how to go about meeting the right people and where to go. I think I have found the answer—so maybe it will be of help to you.

First of all, let me say most emphatically that money and social position have nothing to do with it. . . . Economic position affects only the form, the surface details of a person—his clothes, his grammar, his manners. NOT his essence as a human being. And what you and I are interested in is the essence not the surface polish. . . . I disagree most emphatically with Frank Lloyd Wright when he says, “Look in the tearooms for the real women of America.” Ayn Rand says: Bosh! The only difference between the women in the tearooms and the women in the Waldorf-Astoria is the price list on the menus.

But the truth of the matter is that one finds worthwhile men and women among people who work. . . . People who love to work, who are good at it, serious about it and concerned primarily with it. Bright, creative, productive, ambitious people. People who get money for their work, but who do not work primarily for the money—whether it’s a weekly pay envelope or a thousand dollar bonus. People who are ambitious—not to climb socially, not to get wealth and titles—but ambitious to do more and more work of a better and better kind. It’s among such people that you’ll find the woman you want, if I have understood you correctly.

The popular singer Al Green was recently honored at the Kennedy Center with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He was interviewed on the PBS Newshour on December 8. In one of his responses, Mr. Green said of his career origins: “I was in San Antonio, Texas. And I made a vow, and that’s what started all that, that I would work. And when I work, I work as hard as I can every time, no matter if I’m sick, I’m well, I don’t feel good, whatever. I think the audience deserves to see the best there is . . . .”

In the letter I quoted, Rand mentioned brightness in connection with work. A couple decades latter, she wrote some essay in which she said that even rather menial work can use intelligence. I would add that it is not always a matter of only intelligence that can be laid out in words, like writing up a good procedure. I worked while I was in engineering school at a plant that built locomotives. I recall being given a tour in one department in which my guide was showing the workmen packing into the metal chamber known as the high-voltage cabinet all the electrical cables that come to contacts there. My guide showed me a cabinet that was being packed by a newcomer and a cabinet that was being packed by an old hand. The difference in appearance, in the sense of orderliness and security in appearance, of the two was dramatic. It was an art, and there too is intelligence.

I’m reading a recent book on the conception of friendship in the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and I’m making a little review of it, comparing it to other conceptions. That is how I came across this 1944 letter. I don’t know how far Ayn Rand’s ideas about friendship at that stage may have evolved (or not) as more years of life went by.

[Brant Gaede]

Is that the Gerald Loeb who ended up on Wall Street? I suspect it is.

Can you give the reference for the book you found this letter in?

--Brant

[Reidy]

Loeb was a founder of E. F. Hutton and the author of popular investment books. He and Rand both planned in the 1940s to build houses with Wright in Redding CT, but neither went through with it. As an informal financial adviser to Wright he advised him to take the job designing for the movie version of The Fountainhead and chided him over this in later years when he complained about lack of money. He also knew Jack and Harry Warner, who would have been the clients for the job, having helped to take the studio public.

The quote comes from Letters p. 154.

[Cathy]

Cathy, I came across this interesting letter of your aunt written in August 1944, and I’d like to share here with all a portion of it. The letter is to a man named Gerald Loeb, who was an executive, a budding writer, and friend of Frank Lloyd Wright. Mr. Loeb and Ms. Rand corresponded for six years.

Rand to Loeb, replying to earlier letters from him:

. . .

Your problem of how to meet a worthwhile woman is a problem that I have faced all my life, though not in the same terms. I was fortunate enough to meet Frank early in life, so my quest was not of a romantic nature, but all my life I have been troubled by the fact that most people I met bored me to death and I wondered where and how one can meet interesting people. I knew such people existed . . . . I am enough like Roark to be able to exist quite happily in solitude, and I had Frank, which is the greatest mercy God has ever granted me (and I feel that without being religious), but I do like people—when they are really human beings—I love to meet interesting minds and exchange ideas and feel an interested affection, not contempt, for those around me. So, you see, in a way, it was the same problem as yours—though I wanted only to find friends, and you seek more than that. The practical steps, however, would be the same, the question—how to go about meeting the right people and where to go. I think I have found the answer—so maybe it will be of help to you.

First of all, let me say most emphatically that money and social position have nothing to do with it. . . . Economic position affects only the form, the surface details of a person—his clothes, his grammar, his manners. NOT his essence as a human being. And what you and I are interested in is the essence not the surface polish. . . . I disagree most emphatically with Frank Lloyd Wright when he says, “Look in the tearooms for the real women of America.” Ayn Rand says: Bosh! The only difference between the women in the tearooms and the women in the Waldorf-Astoria is the price list on the menus.

But the truth of the matter is that one finds worthwhile men and women among people who work. . . . People who love to work, who are good at it, serious about it and concerned primarily with it. Bright, creative, productive, ambitious people. People who get money for their work, but who do not work primarily for the money—whether it’s a weekly pay envelope or a thousand dollar bonus. People who are ambitious—not to climb socially, not to get wealth and titles—but ambitious to do more and more work of a better and better kind. It’s among such people that you’ll find the woman you want, if I have understood you correctly.

The popular singer Al Green was recently honored at the Kennedy Center with a Lifetime Achievement Award. He was interviewed on the PBS Newshour on December 8. In one of his responses, Mr. Green said of his career origins: “I was in San Antonio, Texas. And I made a vow, and that’s what started all that, that I would work. And when I work, I work as hard as I can every time, no matter if I’m sick, I’m well, I don’t feel good, whatever. I think the audience deserves to see the best there is . . . .”

In the letter I quoted, Rand mentioned brightness in connection with work. A couple decades latter, she wrote some essay in which she said that even rather menial work can use intelligence. I would add that it is not always a matter of only intelligence that can be laid out in words, like writing up a good procedure. I worked while I was in engineering school at a plant that built locomotives. I recall being given a tour in one department in which my guide was showing the workmen packing into the metal chamber known as the high-voltage cabinet all the electrical cables that come to contacts there. My guide showed me a cabinet that was being packed by a newcomer and a cabinet that was being packed by an old hand. The difference in appearance, in the sense of orderliness and security in appearance, of the two was dramatic. It was an art, and there too is intelligence.

I’m reading a recent book on the conception of friendship in the writings of Thomas Aquinas, and I’m making a little review of it, comparing it to other conceptions. That is how I came across this 1944 letter. I don’t know how far Ayn Rand’s ideas about friendship at that stage may have evolved (or not) as more years of life went by.

Hi Stephen, I love reading letters she wrote especially about Uncle Frank. When I talk about things she had told me growing up...it is not a quote because it was understood by a child. But when I read the things she writes and her terminology (because she actually talk like she wrote and didn't care if you were a child) I would understand it as a child would. But now reading her things I understand it as an adult and I find her more amazing. I use to drive a shuttle bus back and forth from the Holiday Inn to Cleveland Hopkins airport for business execs back in the early eighties. I had a very, very important exec and was told to be very, very pleasant to this gentleman. So of course I was extremely nervous and didn't know what to say to him. When I picked him up he was very well dress and seemed all business. All I could think about is I have an hour and a half drive with this suited, stuffy, businessman and thought I would have rather been in high school driving with my principle. But the reason I remember this man is because he was like anyone else I would drive back and forth with. I soon forgot he was so important and we talked and laughed the whole ride. But what he told me, and I have never forgotten it because in my mind I thought of Aunt Alice. He asked me what I thought of lazy people. I told him I didn't like lazy people because it wasn't fair for me to pick up their slack when we both work the same hours for the same pay. He said, exactly! That's what most people would say. He said, have you ever tried looking at it from a different view. I told him no and thought there couldn't be any good view to work with a lazy person. He said he owned many top notch factories all through out the country and most of my workers are the laziest son of a bitches on the planet and I love them all. By this time I was laughing, thinking you must be crazy. He said, awww you laugh, but the laziest people have made me rich. They are so lazy they will look for the easiest and fastest way of re-doing a part or putting it back together..therefore parts go out faster, more efficient and I don't need to hire more man power. Right away I thought of Aunt Alice. She would tell me, no matter what my capabilities were just do the best I can with what I have. Always do your best and it will be recognized. I thought about that back then through the drive, if your lazy, and you do your best at it, you will recognized...even with (I thought) a disadvantage. I started noticing lazy people and their short cuts of doing things and believe me it has paid off for me over the years. Thank you Stephen, things like this help me remember, at the time, I thought were the little things that now I know made a big difference in my life ~Cathy~ Merry Christmas!

[Cathy]

I wish for all of you a very Merry Christmas!

[Mikee]

Cathy,

Best wishes to you and yours for the holidays and new year. Thank you for all of your heartfelt contributions to OL. Your perspective is very much appreciated.

[Selene]

I wish for all of you a very Merry Christmas!

Same to you Cathy and your family...

By the way, Robert Heinlein, who has used your aunt's ideas in his novels, explained that:

“All progress is made by a lazy person looking for an easier way."

Lazerous Long/Robert Heinlein

[Brant Gaede]

Merry Christmas Cathy!

--Brant