Here’s a letter from Fred to Patrick in which he remembers some of their earlier adventures together.

I found it in a Word document dated 1 Dec ‘5, but I don’t know when it was actually written. My guess is that it’s from the early 2000’s, after they had established an e-mail connection, since I have no indication that Patrick ever typed up any of Fred’s written correspondence.

Damn, Pat,

Had a page written, lost power, lost message — or maybe you got part of it.

Addendum to Shelley exchange: last night when thumbing through Jas. Meredith’s poems ran across a note to one (fate ?????) claiming that Trelawney sez he was aboard Byron’s yacht intent on convoying Shelley back to Lerici, was detaiined by port authorities.  Shelley sailed out on the Ariel (Trelawney claims to have designed it, was ‘keel-heavy’), was capsized or run down by a ‘felucca’ in squall, drowned with Williams AND a cabin boy, Charles Vivian.  Trelawny recovered the boat & cremated the bodies.  don’t I — and you — remember reading something about trelawny lifting shelley’s heart out of the ashes in some Romantic Poetry class????????    well, I send it along.

2 small questions about occupation.  Do you have to arrange lodging for yr performers?  Where are performances?  Is there a theatre in Deia?  Your life sounds rich & varied — & music filled.  I don’t know soler’s music, but i do know the name.  Are these mss. unpublished?

Ah, Zambak . . . a right worthy vessel.  I remember her in dry dock, amid a crowd of other memories.  I remember Nishli, handsome, moustache, quitting smoking.  Rococo shoe shine stands.  That damned ferry.  Waiters swinging brass trays of the wonderful tea.  Yep, Lysimachus’s ruined fortress as restaurant — the Izmir harbor ismore beautiful than Naples.  Hell, I even remember Bulent’s pyjamas.  Dolmusch(sic) equale taxi.  & I’ll never forget the turkish for scorpion — akrepe  . . . I thought i was going to die, despite the old goatherd’s incantation.  & what was the bean & rice in lamb broth dish we snacked on.  & that black amazon school teacher?  & stuffed grape leaves for breakfast in Bursa after all night on a bus — the tea saved us.  & after dark in Troy, me with Dorpfeld’s map in my hip pocket, we had dinner . . . in Hisserlik? or did we go down to cannakle?  I think the restaurant was on or near a dock.  Can you remember?  I remember the guy guiding us around the gypsy camp.  & driving along the coast . . . to Miletus???? — stopping, and running into a crystaline sea — alert for eels, of course.  & the pavyyon(sic) girls . . . you truly didn’t know whether to fuck up the eating or eat up the fucking . . . god, what skin!  Or waiting for you in Athens 48 hrs without a drachma in my jeans — you had gotten bumped off a ship to make room for Greeks & goats at Easter.  Some Brit bought me dinner.  Remember the 1st time in Athens — we met & headed for the acropolis immediately after shaking hands.  Another time jumped in a rented car and drove to Delphi.  We already had religion.  Or drunk on Chios trying to count bazooki rhythms?  O well . . .

I’ve still got my Alexander the Great coin.  Hey, do you still have those wonderful British Admiralty maps?  Zambak!  Get another boat!  I’ll come!  We’ll go!

           ‘And then went down to ship, set keel to breakers,
            Forth on the godly sea . . . etc’

Have you noticed . . . when you’re sitting down, with coffee & cigarette, anything seems possible.

Yourn, f