My commentary will be in italics.

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I wrote this letter when I was 28 and living in an apartment on Whitney Avenue in Queens in New York City, working as a computer software consultant. My sister, three years younger, was living in Golden, Colorado, my parents lived on the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee with my grandmother. I'm not sure where my brother Ray, eight years younger, was at that time.

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Have I changed since 52 years ago? Yes and no.

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The following is the transcription (complements of Aiko) of the type-written letter above.

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6:19 p.m. Monday, Dec 11, 1972

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Dear Family,

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The Challenger landed on the moon today about 2:53 p.m. NYC time.

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A lot has been happening in my life that I haven’t written you about. I don’t know how much of it I will remember now, since things that happened only a short time ago seem so damn long ago since so much has happened since a short time ago. Got all that straight. Good. I’m glad.

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Now I had a pretty good time on my vacation to Denver and Chicago. But some of it was boring. I notice that whenever I visit someone, everything is usually very exciting for about the first day. And then the excitement begins to taper off. You just can’t plain visit someone for much more than a day. At least I can’t. Not unless there is romantic involvement.

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Little did I know then that the issue of "visiting with someone getting old" after a day would also, in some sense, apply to romantic involvements. It wasn't until around 1996 that I got clear about the fact that, at least for me, to maintain the romance and excitement with a woman, I needed to limit my time with her to about once a week. If I had kept the "visits" with either of my wives (there were just two of them) to a week or less, there would have been a good chance that the romance and excitement between us could have continued indefinitely.

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So a lot of the latter days I was in Colorado, it was boring for both Karen and I. Next time I go to visit her, I am going to get a temporary job in Denver. Then I can fit right in with the schedule. We’ll all come home from work and talk about our job or whatever we did for the day. I will find the work, even dog work, since it will be only for a few days. I’ll pick up a few dollars and I will get into the city and people more that way. While I was in Chicago I tried this idea out. I worked two separate places on two separate days.

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November 4th I met a girl I really like. You’ve heard me mention John Potye. Well John’s girlfriend’s sister came up to NYC to visit John and Stephanie (John’s girlfriend) from Baltimore. I got Stephanie to fix us up and it happened. Things clicked. I’ve been to Baltimore twice for the weekends. And Ruth has been here for one weekend. It is my first experience with long distance romance.

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I have decided to go ahead and pay my taxes. I’ve looked into all the pros and cons and decided that, at least for now, it would be best to go ahead and cough up the money. I could probably fight the government and have a good chance of winning from what I have been able to tell, but if I lose, it could mean jail. And although jail would be an adventure, it’s one I like to bypass if possible. There were a lot of other considerations like the problem with your will, Hana and Daddy, and the possibility that my credit rating would be shot and all my credit cards would be revoked (and you know how I like my credit cards) and I would have to hide my money in places where the government couldn’t garnish it, etc. So this week I will be seeing an accountant to check things out.

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At that time in my life, I procrastinated on a lot of things (unlike today), one of which was filing my tax returns. When I worked for IBM, one reason I filed my taxes was because taxes were withheld and I could generally get some money back. After I started working for myself, it didn't work that way: I would have to fork out some money that was already in my pocket.

 

Consequently, I kept not filing my taxes and I also learned about something called a "tax rebel" and how to do it successfully. The idea also appealed to an aspect of my Libertarian philosophy (just so you know, being a tax rebel is not an idea that most Libertarians would support).

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Although I didn't know it at that time, I would end up becoming a tax rebel not too long after I wrote this letter. Some might argue I was even successful at doing it (for 12 years). Maybe because I didn't follow the procedures properly with filing my tax returns with the State of New York, I did finally get into trouble with them (never with the IRS as far as I know, although some special agents did come to visit me). The State of New York got a jeopardy assessment against me that amounted to a huge amount that I could have never paid. I was able to ignore it for while until 1984 when they came after me and my wife with a debt collection agency. Fortunately (I won't go into how we did it here), I was able to extricate us from that entanglement with the State of New York without paying them anything. After that, I decided to file my taxes regularly.

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It’s so convenient. Life is. It seems to know what you need. Last Thursday I was offered a new client. Last Friday I was offered another new client. Both of which seem to be able to provide me with all the work I could handle just each alone. One job involves going into a plant (Standard Motor Parts) and advising them from top to bottom on what I think they need in the way of an inventory parts status computer system. On Wednesday I will be going in to see if I can sell myself to them. I have already sold myself to Bill Lavery, a fellow I met at a Nathaniel Branden therapy workshop. He just called me up asking what I thought about a system that I thought was already half built. The other job involves straight programming and I can do the work at home on an hourly basis.

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Well, anyway, I will need some of the money I make from the jobs to pay some of my back taxes. I have to pay 1970, 1971, and later 1972. I think another main reason that I decided to pay my taxes, that, in this point in my life, I am not in the mood to fight the government. Maybe some other time I will be in the fighting mood and I would really enjoy the conflict, but right now in my life I am into so many other things.

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One thing I am really into now is learning how to ask for things I want from them. For example, last week I was applying for temporary work thru an agency called SYSTEMP. The receptionist was a real eye knocker. And I wanted to get to know her. So when I was all finished and she was handing me my coat, I said, "I'd like to go to lunch with you, tomorrow." She said, after a pause, "You would, would you." "Yes, I would." "But you don't even know me!" "That's why I want to take you to lunch." "Ok." Of course, I know I can't expect that positive a response from everyone when I ask them for something I want. But I am continually amazed at how often I get what I ask for.

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This is something that I have expanded upon over the years and often coach my clients on: If you don't ask, the answer is always 'no', if you ask, it could be 'yes.'

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It's now 7:02 and moon walk coverage starts at 7:30 which I will watch.

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This Wednesday is the first session of an encounter group I am starting. It is a specialized type of encounter group (you might call it a sensitivity group) aimed towards helping its members develop the ability to be more open with others and themselves about their feelings. It's rather experimental and I don't know how it is going to come off. I'll know that after Wednesday night.

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Even then I was organizing a life-development event, never suspecting that this would the the type of thing that I would devote my life to when I officially became a life coach in 1987.

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7:47 p.m. the astronauts are walking on the moon now. No television pictures being sent back yet however.

Till later.

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Love,
 

Dwight