Yours sincerely, Mr. Ames, and this isn't all I want to say, Willa.

[A few hours later]

Dear Mr. Ames, I should have spoken also about all the kinds of fires and arson. Very young people setting them? Those weren't young N.W. Indians "we" fought. I should have asked, "How much are we doing for the world's trees that are left, when there's so little left to burn. Mama said to me once: "First the Fire--then the Flood." Who is flooded?! My house?

Trees that are not too "important" to anyone? What about them? I don't know why we can see into any distance when smoke should dim every view. That and poisons that bow over land, and then land. I miss those trees! Volcanic action has covered more trees. There is deadly moss on remaining ones - everywhere, and the air and noxious fumes we "breathe" are terrible. It sickens and chokes us - even though the thinning ozone layer has stabilized. What is it like in New Jersey? - the emissions. Did arsons and lightnings "get" many trees?

[Here's part of Willa's speech! Finally! She said all of the following, almost word for word, at a rally in Whistle, and I think her "mother" wrote it. So, from tape]:

"O say, can't you see what has been happening to our freedoms? To the very principles of God, principles that describe God, and are, therefore, freedom? In your haste, in your fears and pride and vanity, did you enshrine a rigid and static `freedom' as you sought to change even unchangeable Law? You struck directly at the Lord, Himself! His Commandment! Any 'freedom' laid in our human angers and terrors, terror over 'ferreting', franchises, and scams, and even over smuggled immigrants and a terrible debt; are wrong. There are mass poisonings, still, and spreading diseases. Everything that's rotten spreads. There are 'brave' rioters. There is depression over an insidious Depression, over the disastrous economy with no housing-starts, but with higher and higher taxes. Long-ago tax cuts hurt the poor, the environment and farms. Do we not have new arms races, constant wars, rumors of wars, and so many people who can't read about it? More dyslexia? Why aren't you caring about citizen's safety? Do you fear that we've already had the Apocalypse?" [Pause] "With such fears, do we 'go' with a true freedom?--or with illusions and more delusion? What have we thrown away!? What do we think we are nullifying!? Whose spirit - whose stands in your solutions? Whose traditions are in the framework?!" [Some of that wasn't Mama's stuff.]