What I Remember (13): Letters

WHAT I
REMEMBER
Correspondence from George

George, 1999George was a chronic correspondent. He loved to write – to friends, family, and businesses. Most of the letters reflected his personality: witty, pointed, and engaging. A selection follows.

BUSINESS LETTERS
To: Luis Orozco
April 12, 1965

Dear Luis,

I received your letter, for which I thank you, and must apologize for my long and unforgivable sllence. It is not enough to say that I have been very. busy, I really should have written to you and all I can say is that I am sincerely sorry that I have not.

The paintings and the monotypes, which I took with me last summer, have Hen very well received and we have sold quite a few of them. I am sending you with, this letter an accounting of those which we have sold and a check for the same. We have one small oil unsold and The Priest, which I am buying personally and am sending you my personal check. Your friend, Mr. Goldfinger, oame into the shop and picked up the three unframed monotypes whichwe had ror the exhibit he is planning in Connecticut. I mentioned to him that one or the things I had intended writiµg to you about was the possibility of a show of your things in our Gallery. Let me fill you in a little bit on the Greek Island Gallery. We had a good size room, adjacent to the shop which We had been using as a store room and. we made this into a Gallery' for Greek artists, Americans living in Greece, or artists married to Greek ladies. Our first show planned from the summer when I was in Greece was a one-man show of the Greek painter, SikeliotisJ the second. show was unplanned and occurred as a result 'of a visit Dorothy Andrews paid to the shop when sh. was recentl;r in America. '!hat was the sum of our Gallery experience. The room now has paintings of Sikeliotis, Dorothy Andrews and two of your framed monotypes as well as the small oil of yours. I mentioned to Mr. Goldfinger that after the Connecticut Gallery is through with the exhibi t we. would, like to consider the possibility of halKing a one-man show, or possiblY' a huspand and wife show, in Mayor June. How do you feel about this? Please let me know.

I trust you are well in Mykonos. We had a refreshing touch of the Cyclades in New York with the visit of Nikolo here. He is now in Chicago, but I am sure we will see him again before he returns to Mykonos.

Once more, please accept my sincere apologies for my long silence. My warm regards to both you and your wife.

Sincerely,
George Soter

To: Staff of Greek Island Ltd.
October 9, 1968

Shop Management Memo - No. 1. To: Mr. & Mrs. LaRosa, Mr. & Mrs. Meltzer, Mrs. Soter, Mrs. Theodore, Mrs. Smith
As a result of two meetings held by the Greek Island Ltd. stockholders on Oct. 2 and Oct. 6, the stockholders arrived at certain conclusions regarding the daily operation of the shop. It was agreed in principle and in detail that I will take a more active role in establishing day-to-day policy and operating procedures. It was also agreed to by me that in order to make my plans, activities and requirements clear and meaningful to all concerned I will undertake to communicate these plans, activities and requirements to all concerned. The most effective manner of course would be frequent periodic meetings. Since my schedule prohibits such a luxury I must resort to the inconvenience for all of us of memos, of which this is the historic first.

As I see these memos now, I will state what I consider to be the day-to-day needs' for the running of the shop. Certain of these memos, such as this one, will be general in nature and will be addressed to all the employees of the shop regardless of corporate status, reimbursement etc. others will be more specific, regarding strictly corporate or individual action, and these will be sent only to members of the board. In such memos as require action I will attempt to state the action and also give the time by which I would like it carried out.

The subject matter of the memos will attempt to cover all areas which I f~+ need covering. The objective for the shop that each of the directors desires i\maximum profi~ability. Many factors enter into the profitability of an undertaking such as ours. Sales and sales-level are of course one of the basics of profitability. And since the better part of our sales are made in the shop, the appearance of the shop, the general housekeeping regarding the premises as well as goods on display, our attitude towards customers, etc. are directly involved in the level of sales achieved each day • Whether rightly or wrongly we have x number of things available to sell; the basic job of each of you in the shop is to sell those things. It seems an oversimplification, but the dollars available at the end of any period come from only one source: sales. Anything in the shop that prohibits the making of a sale should be corrected. Anything that helps the making of a sale should be supported. These memos will seek to correct sale-inhibitors and to promote sale-supporters. We have a good inventory, we have a good clientele, and we have what some consider a remarkable reputation. The job ahead does not seem difficult to me.

Finally, let me also add that these memos are not intended to replace periodic fiscal meetings of the board to cover broad financial and inventor,y matters but are, instead, aimed at getting each and ever,y one of you to enjoy the active participation in the day-to-d~ running of the shop that you may feel has been lacking in the recent past. Such active participation may require unusual efforts on the part of each of you. I must assume, that you are anxious tp take, on such unusual efforts.

As you all know, as far as the shop is concerned, mlfinterest, energy, drive, involvement and time know; no bounds. I can understand that each of you to varying degrees may not have equal interest, energy, drive, etc. Nonetheless for the continued wellbeing of the shop I will have to address each of you as though I were speaking to ~se1f. I will never ask anyone to do aQYthing chat I would. not do or that I have not been doing. If any of you feels that what I ask is too much, too hard or too timeconsuming, then all you have to do is let me know that you can't do it and either I or Mrs. Soter will get it done.

In short, as far as the success of the shop is concerned, I drive myself to perform in the only way I feel ultimate success can be reached. I will now seek to drive the rest of yoµ once more.

Good luck.
George Soter

1976
From: Maurice Valency
To: The Board President, 404 Riverside Drive

It distresses me to bother you with this, but the fact is that the gas fireplace in Mr. Soter's apartment, 10-S, constitutes a fire hazard which can no longer be overlooked. The fireplace adjoins our kitchen, and when the gas log is lit, the intervening wall becomes hot enough to ignite a match, and there is a strong smell of burning wood. Mr. Soter is aware of the danger; we have discussed it with him several times, but his children - you know how children are. We are about to leave for several months. Our apartment will be empty, but the danger of fire will remain, naturally, so long as this fireplace is in use. I think we should all rest easier if this were looked into at the earliest possible moment.

Yours sincerely,
Maurice Valency

From: The Manager, 404 Riverside Drive
To: George Soter

Dear Mr. Soter,
Mr. Valency has been kind enough to call to call our attention to the occasional use of a gas log fire in the fireplace opening in your living room. He has done so mostly in a spirit of helpfulness and in the best interest of the house, and we are attaching hereto copy of his letter, which was sent to the board president.

Investigations of the usage of the fireplace did indeed indicate that from time to time the gas logs are fired and in our opinion such usage constitutes a grave and serious hazard. The vent, or chimney, has been blocked above the fireplace so that gases from the fire cannot properly dissipate to the outer air, but more seriously, the log fire is ensconced within a non-fireproof wall.

We believe that the use of the fireplace as above described should be stopped immediately and any future usage be prevented by having the superintendent disconnect and cap the gas line. An alternate solution would be your undertaking to complete all necessary work in accordance with the requirements of governmental bodies having jurisdiction, to see that the gas-fired logs are properly installed, and more importantly that the chimney is altered and left to function properly. This work could be an expensive undertaking.

On behalf of the Board of Directors, we ask that you refrain from using this fireplace prior to letting us know which of the alternatives suggested above you would prefer to follow. We believe, we can count on your full cooperation in the best interest of 404 Riverside Drive.

Very truly yours,
Brown, Harris, Stevens

From: George Soter
To: The Manager, 404 Riverside DriveFireplace at 404 Riverside Drive.

Gentlemen:
Thank you for forwarding me a copy of Mr. Valency's letter of January 18 to the board president; and for your letter of February 25, both of which were concerned with the gas-log in our living room fireplace and both of which arrived this weekend to heat up a bit of our family's dinner table conversation.

My, what a storm seems to have been raging all about us. After your letter, I learned that the super had even visited our apartment during Mrs. Soter's and my absence at work, expressly to investigate the fireplace in question.

But to go to the start of this brouhaha. One evening in mid-January (when our living room was particularly uninhabitable due to the cold), the gas-log had indeed been lit, and had been turned up to "high," instead of the "low" that has been our prevailing custom since the Valencys first expressed their fears four or five years ago of "spontaneous-combustion" taking place "within the walls" should the walls become over-heated. To give you an idea of the volume of heat or flame created by the log, I would say it is about equal to the heat provided by the broiler of a gas stove. On this particular evening the log was on "high," the wall did become heated, and there certainly was an odor in the air - the odor of a heated, painted surface, not unlike the odor given off by a painted radiator. When the Valencys called us, and expressed their old fears again, I told them that the log had already been turned off. I suggested that I would request the fire department provide us with an inspection and an opinion. I also offered to consult with a specialist and to install some sort of asbestos backing to the fireplace, if that were recommended.

On the next evening – before I had the opportunity to do any of these things – three firemen from the fire department presented themselves to examine our fireplace. They said they had been summoned by the Valencys (who had not informed us of this step), and they had just interviewed the Valencys. They then examined the fireplace log, gas jet, and the wall behind it. All three men seemed, in my opinion, apologetic for their intrusion and somewhat sheepish about the nature of their call. They then informed us that the fire-log was in no violation of any fire department regulation or city ordinance.

They further suggested that when we used it, we should keep it low so that the wall wouldn't heat up and frighten our anxious neighbors. We clearly asked if they thought it was "dangerous" and they clearly replied, "No, it's not." This visit by the fire department was of great reassurance since I - my knowledge of the laws of physics and combustibility being limited - had begun to feel that, all logic to the contrary notwithstanding, perhaps the Valencys' fears might have some minimal foundation in actuality. Now, reassured by the fire department's laisse passer, I did nothing further except to refrain from lighting the log: even if one feels one is in the right, one seeks to refrain from discomfiting one's neighbors (and one does hate reprimands).

But our poor little concrete log, cold and flameless, has in the intervening period been apparently blazing away with great intimations of catastrophe, not only in the minds of the Valencys, but also at the conferences of the board of directors, in the added duties of the super, and in your own schedule of problems to deal with.

Mr. Valency starts off his letter by writing "the fact is that the gas fireplace ... constitutes a fire hazard." I would like to know how this "fact" was determined. The only authority consulted so far on what constitutes a fire hazard has been the fire department, and they expressly declared it was not a hazard. (If it were, would they have left it functioning?) Mr. Valency surely must have been aware of this when he wrote of his "fact."

The only "fact" so far clearly established is that the Valencys are fearful of our fireplace. Although they have the freedom to be fearful of whatever they choose to fear, this does not give them license to transpose the "fact of fear" into a "fact of hazard." I do believe in the "fact" of their fear; I respect their privilege to voice it; and I will - at whatever inconvenience to my household - cater to their fear for the sake of respectful civility. None of this makes the hazard a "fact." (If it did, I'm sure my sense of community is at least equal to the Valencys', and I would not need to be pushed into communally protective behavior. (A footnote about Mr. Valency’s letter: the "children" he refers to, making them sound like tots, are aged 22, 20, and 17 years.)

As for the assessment of the fireplace in your letter, I take issue with one or two points. First off, you refer to a grave and serious hazard. Your first support of this contention has to do with the closed vent "so that gases from the fire cannot properly dissipate to the outer air." My expertise in this area is certainly limited but if you are saying that a burning gas flame requires some sort of a chimney or vent then this must be a new insight into the dynamics and the properties of burning gas. What happens to those undissipated gases from all the ventless, chimneyless gas ranges used in our building and in many others? Certainly our kitchen stove, when a large meal is being prepared with all jets and both ovens going, creates more "undissipated gases" - whatever they may be - than our three-or-four-times-a-year living room log. If you conclude our log is unsafe because of the absence of an air vent, our kitchen range is downright cinematic in its potential for destruction.

Your second observation, that the fireplace is "ensconced within a non-fireproof wall," gives me greater pause. My dictionary indicates that ensconce means "to place, fix or conceal in a secure place"; I'm sure you did not intend to say that the fireplace was secure. But my greater question has to do with the non-fireproof walls. Which I wonder, of our walls are non-fireproof? All? Some? None? And how, I further wonder, did the original architects of our glorious building - so clever in so many ways -lapse hero and set up the original fireplace in a non-fireproof wall in the first place?

There's no need to belabor this silly affair further. I do resent being presented with conclusions of "fact" where no facts, to date, have been forthcoming. I am certainly anxious to cooperate with the building and you to alleviate the persistence of fears having to do with our fireplace.

Please send me the names and addresses of the "governmental bodies having jurisdiction" to which you refer. Failing that (since I'm not sure what you're talking about) please send me the name or names of any non-government authorities you might like to suggest. I will arrange to meet with any such authority and will abide with his decision provided he is, in reality, an authority. My preference, of course, would be to find a solution that allows for continued use of the fireplace and which also permits the Valencys to regain the serene tranquility, which is their due.

In the meanwhile, as you request, the fireplace will not be used.

I await your list of recommended authorities. And, on behalf of the Soter household, I ask that you refrain from authorizing any further "investigations of the usage of' (I assume that means you asked the super to have his look at) our fireplace, without first making your desire to make such an investigation known to me or Mrs. Soter.

Sincerely,
George Soter

George and Effie, 1950sFrom: The Manager, 404 Riverside Drive
To: George Soter

Dear Mr. Soter,
Your letter has been brought to my attention in order for me to concoct a response. If I can be instrumental in an attempt to quench the flame of discontent before any heated discussions erupt, then perhaps these torch letters will have served a purpose.

As you know, spontaneous combustion like any other flame (even of discontent) requires an ignition point, oxygen, and fuel. In the case of the hot discussion about fireplace walls, a minor exploratory excavation will quickly determine if the wall is indeed fuel for fire or merely fuel for aggravation.

As to the questions of undissipated gases from the burning of gas fuel, fireplaces notwithstanding, the only danger is the depletion of oxygen in a confined unventilated space. To my way of thinking, the fire department would be authoritative enough to be determined as jurisdictional over any other governmental bodies and their opinion should supersede opinions, fears, or facts.

At your convenience, I would like to survey your fireplace to satisfy myself that there exists nothing hazardous, grave, or dangerous. Then I will try to convince your neighbor that his fears are unfounded. He then can remain firmly ensconced in his apartment to enjoy the quiet peacefulness and solitude of carefree living while you continue to enjoy the dancing flames of your log fire.

Very truly yours,
John Doe
Brown Harris Stevens

To: Eddie Bauer Clothing Store
January 12, 2003

Sirs:

I am responding to your form letter (December 17, 2002) in re 80 1726 459 2.

First off, in my two conversations with your Eddie Bauer representativess (in my estimation, mistakenly labeled “customer service”) I made no inquiry regarding bank fees which your form letter suggests I did.

Instead, what I thought I had done in my telephone conversations was :

1. To trace the history of my having an account with your company, a history that began when a business associate who was wearing a navy blue linen shirt that I admired directed me to your company where he had bought it. Alas, by the time in late August that I finally hit the Eddie Bauer store on Broadway and 68th, linen shirts were long gone. But, being a happy shopper, I looked around and found another handsome shirt--a sort of sbrushed denimy cotton priced around $25. When I brought it to a salesperson, he asked if I had an Eddie Baauer charge and then, when I said I would pay cash, suggested that if I opened a charge that day I would automatically receive a discount, I was hooked. The discount was relatively miniscule, but I liked the merchandise in the store and since I had three grown sons and any number of grown nephews for whom I purchased gifts, an Eddie Bauer Charge sounded like a good idea. Not so. I did the paperwork and went off with my lightly discounted denimy blue shirt.

2. To explain that shortly after the above, in mid-September, I moved--after forty years at one address and after a lucrative sale of a ten-room apartment on Riverside Drive--as a result of that move experienced an unusual disruption of my mail delivery (I received no mail from September 6 through September 26 even though I had filed a change of address form in a timely manner.) I enclose copies of letters from the post office verifying this.

3. To point out that, among the many pieces of tardy mail I recevied was your first bill for that nice blue shirt and, that once I found it in the turmoil of the move, I immediately sent off a check even though the payment due date had passed by several days.

4. To explain that I was shocked to discover on my next bill from your company that my late payment for that slightly discounted handsome blue shirt was for more than the original cost of the shirt.

It was then that I telephoned the customer service number with a request that my charge account be immediately cancelled since I had no interst in being associated with a company engaged in such usurious fiscal practices. She, anxious to maintain a new (though allbeit late-paying) charge customer suggested that the way to proceed was to immediately pay the minimum balance on the new bill and that she would, given the circumstances, convey my distress to the proper authorities and, though she made no concrete offer of reembursemnt or even of review, she optimistically encouraged this line of action. So I paid the $35., which, then, it turns out became a first installment on the purchase of my $25 shirt and, I must admit, I half expectied that, soon, I would receive, at least, a form letter of apology from some Eddie Bauer representative. After all, Eddie Bauer was a Class Act not a Canal Street fly-by-nighter.

After mailing a payment to you yesterday for my last bill from you ($54.93), I calculate that that nice blue denimy $25.00 shirt has now put me out for $115.55. If this is an example of your come-on discount , how would you identify a scalping operation?

I hereby ask you to cancel my charge with your company and reqest that you send me no literature, catalogues, etc. Unfortunately, what you won’t be able to cancel is the word-of-mouth of this hapless former--but thankfully,s only momentarily---former customer.

Aggrievedly,
George Soter

Rite Aid
November 21, 2005

Dear Sirs:

This is a letter of serious complaint about a prescription incident at your Manhattan branch at 2833 Broadway at 110th Street.

Some background: I am an 80-year-old man, principal caregiver for my wife Effie Soter who has Alzheimers. For the past decade, I had been ordering my prescription drugs via the AARP mail service but, about a year ago, I found that it was more convenient to use your pharmacy at the above location since I would then no longer need to depend on mail delivery. I have since used this pharmacy for all our household drug needs, finding the telephone refill service particularly helpful.George, 2006

On Friday, November 18, I tried to use the call-in service for a refill on my wife’s 10 mg Ambien pills; the bottle indicated that there were two refills available. I repeatedly called from 8:00 am until I left my office around 3:00 pm and was unable to complete the call (I later was told that the phone service had been inoperative that day). Since the medication was extremely important, my wife is subject to uneasy sleep and nocturnal wandering, I had the refill bottle handcarried to the pharmacy at 6:00 pm and was told it would be ready in an hour. Although, when our son went to pick it up at 10:00 pm and was told with a disdainful and unaccommodating manner that he would have to wait another hour, that is not the main purpose of this complaint. That follows.

At 11:00 pm, I received a call from the on-duty clerk who announced that our prescription was “unfillable” despite the Rite Aid-typed “two refills” on the label. He went on to offer a surly explanation that Dr. Braun who had provided the original prescription had erroneously (and illegally?) prescribed 60 tablets, which the pharmacy had filled with 30 tablets on the original pick-up and one subsequent one (and about which substitution neither I nor the doctor had been informed) and as a result there “were no refills left.” (On whose authority did a part time night duty clerk countermand Dr. Braun’s prescription instructions?)

This surprising and unclear arithmetical explanation was of no use to me for my immediate problem--how do I get along on the Saturday/Sunday week-end without the necessary Ambien?

It seems to me that a responsible professional pharmacist would have done the following: if Dr. Braun had, indeed, made an error, either he or I should have been informed at the time of the original prescription order; failing that, the clerk, on Friday the 18th, should have telephoned me, early in the evening, to report that the prescription “was unfillable” so that I was prepared and could make some rectification (such as a “borrowing” of two pills from another Alzheimer patient’s caregiver--which was not possible at midnight on short notice).

Because of this compounding of failures by your pharmacy staff, I was faced with the drama and painful mental anxiety of two nights without the necessary medication and this, after a 12-hour day of continuous frustration in trying to place the refill order.

When I asked the manager of the Broadway store, the name of the pharmacy manager there so that I could direct this complaint, she told me the name was “Stacy” and that she didn’t know her surname but “that it was Chinese.”

As a result of this exceedingly unhappy long-day experience, I will no longer be using your pharmacy--nor any other of the services of your stores.

And, despite my age, I have a big mouth and a large group of acquaintances, to whom this tale of Rite Aid professional non-service will be a much repeated anecdote.

Your former customer,
George N. Soter

To: The New Yorker
February 16, 2004

Your Cover Stories Supplement last week brought back many memories of my six-decade-plus reader involvment with the New Yorker. And although your cover tour through Manhattan vistas through the years was fascinatiing (and in many cases carried flashes of recognition), what most involved me was the escalating cover prices and what they had probably meant to me during my teen age (and onward) years as I became hooked on your magazine, first in a Chicago high school, then through my World War II army days (with the mini-sized armed services edition, free! and, patriotically paper-conservation-minded without,alas, ads). George, 1970s

In Barrow-in-Furness, Lancashire, and then in London, Lille, Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, Berlin, the armed services editon was a collectible and tradeable. Then, on to post-war life, first, in Detroit (where my parents had relocated and getting a New Yorker entailed a trip to the Book-Cadillac lobby newstand) and, then, back again to Chicago, this time to the University of, where my personal fixation had now become a whole generational one.

TO: "Norton," a book editor
May 21, 2006

Dear Norton,

The copy editing and proofreading problems I mentioned to you occur in Chapter 4, authors Cheng and Reinhardt. Should Uniting America go on to have a paperback afterlife, the publishers may want to make some corrections.

When I started to catch the errors (?) below, I made some early notes; ostensibly to be helpful and not just smart-alecky. But I stopped making notes at about page 81. It all seemed like a show-offy thing to be doing and who wants to admit to being a show-off? (Answer: the guy who writes a letter like this.) Here goes:

On page 77, 2nd paragraph, line 1, “...families below 300 percent of the FPL will find it increasingly difficult...” Did they mean 30%? How can anything be 300 percent below the Federal Poverty Level? What does that mean?

On page 78, 1st paragraph, 8th line “...the price ultimately paid for?/because of ? the lack of timely and preventive care...” To me “paid for” doesn’t quite make easy sense. Also on page 78, last paragraph, 8th line from bottom, “Depending on which approach would had been chosen...” Clearly needs “would have been,” “had been,” or “was.” Further, on page 78, the last sentence that slips over onto page 79. It seems to me that the final words “...if these uninsured had health care in the future” really means “were to have health care in the future.” Otherwise the past tense--had-- in the future is strange?

On page 79, 2nd paragraph, 3rd line, “...and the further assumption that health spending per capita in the next decade will increase by...6 percent in the ensuing decade.” The proliferation of decades is confusing--is it the same forthcoming decade? or is it a series of contiguous future decades? The meaning would be clearer minus the redundancy.

Again, on page 79, second paragraph from the bottom, last line “...for the individually insured.” Doesn’t make sense. Could it mean “for the individuals insured”?

On page 80, 3rd paragaph, last line, “...so called because they matter to individuals other than the recipient of the good or service...” What does this mean? It would help to pluralize “recipient,” “good” and “service”, but not much.

Page 81, 3rd paragraph, 3rd line, “...immunizations...which bestows...” Subject and verb don’t agree. I’ll let a copy editor at Yale make notes on the remaining pages.

And hey! what a great party that was.

Warmly,
George

To: Mark Hoffman, landlord
May 1, 2007

Dear Mark,

One of the pleasures of our apartment is that for the past four years it has allowed me to indulge my gardening interest via its miniscule dining room balcony––I believe that in real estate lingo this is called, borrowing from Shakespeare, a Juliet balcony.

During that time, I had purchased two long planters and the metal “rests” to suspend them from the railing. I maintained these––planted, watered, pruned––plus a larger planter along with a 10-inch ceramic pot kept on the floor of the balcony.

Last fall, one of the building staff––I can’t remember whether it was a doorman or the super––told me, that because of the prevailing winter winds on the Drive, the fire department had asked that hanging pots be removed. This sounded like good cautionary advice, and I brought the hanging pots and their metal “rests” inside, leaving the floored planter and pot as they were.

With the arrival of spring I resumed my “gardening”, rehanging the railing rests and planters, buying and planting geraniums and assorted other annuals. And proceeded with my “gardening”, watering, pruning, etc., for the summer ahead.

When the building “washers” arrived a week or so ago, as the doormen had warned us they would, the west windows, including the balcony doors were sheathed in plastic for a number of days. And when the plastic was removed so, too, had been the two planted hanging planters, one of their metal rests, and the ceramic flowerpot with its flowering hydrangea from the floor.

Last week, I reported these absences to the super, (having been informed by the doormen that the cleaning workers were not bilingual) and that the super would have to deal with it. His response was primarily accusatory/admonitory rather than helpful/apologetic, which would have been welcomer.

He claimed a letter forbidding the placement of planters on the balconies had been sent to all tenants. Beyond last fall’s verbal winter warning on the subject, I have received no pertinent written or otherwise direction since. If such a letter exists I would appreciate receiving a dated copy.

Regardless of the apparent communication breakdown, I would also like to recover the two missing planters with geraniums, etc., the other metal hanger, and the ceramic hydrangea pot––with an estimated total replacement value of about $150.00. Although I realize the super is “very busy,” I hope he can be persuaded to locate my missing garden stuff and provide some kind of explanation for its unauthorized removal. Finally, although that uncharacteristic admonitory/accusative manner may well be the result of overwork, it was unhappily too reminiscent of the manner of his unlamented predecessor for comfort.

Sincerely,
George Soter

To: The New Yorker
2007

Dear, dear New Yorker:
Attention: Peter Webb

I write this with mixed feelings––frustration, anger, disillusionment, annoyance, abandonment, shock.

In early April, I ascribed the first absence of my New Yorker from my Monday mailbox to a probable postal error; then, for the second week's absence, to the possibility that the missed issue had been one of your periodic and periodically annoying "double issues," and that this accounted for no issue this week, again. By the third mailbox absence, I was having acute New Yorker-deprivation feelings––how would I know what was happening in the theater, at the movies, in Washington, in the world? (I bought a copy of the third absent issue at the local newsstand, having stolen the former week's copy from one of my sons––I have three, and for many years they each have been gifted by me with their own subscriptions.)

So, I called the circulation department and spoke to a young woman about my missing copies. She cooly reported that my subscription had expired, citing an April date. When I complained that I had received no warning notice--card, letter, or e-mail–about the imminence of such expiration, she asked me to wait a moment while she consulted the record. Shortly after, she came back on the line to report that I was right, there had been no warning notice sent. She reported this failure cooly, without any explanation for such a lapse, nor even the suggestion of an apology. I asked her, testily, to renew my subscription.

Don't you keep any sort of a file on your subscribers? Some kind of a data bank indicating the history of a multi-decade (such as my) subscribership? Nor some record of subscription gift-giving by subscribers? (My annual list has, for many years, included, in addition to my three sons, friends in such distant places as California, Greece, France, and England.) Is such data of no value to you?

Of course, even if you had such records, they would hardly do more than imply my personal lifetime New Yorker relationship: being an enduring reader/fan starting in a 1930's Chicago high school English class; chasing after the armed forces mini-versions distributed to GIs in WW II; in the mid-40s, taking long weekly bus treks to Detroit's Book Cadillac Hotel news stand, seemingly the only outlet in that culturally bereft city; once, at a flippant age, even toying with filling out some form, by writing "New Yorker" in the space asking for "religion"; still stubbornly continuing to subscribe during the odd Tina Brown years, though not as contentedly; and, in a four-decade career in the advertising business, using the New Yorker as the lead vehicle for advertisers, among them, Standard Oil, Renault, Air France, IBM, Tiffany, Shumacher, even, such unsophisticated ones, as Trump.

A lifetime love affair doesn't have to be actively requited to last. But it sure can piss you off when its tokens of adoration (continuous subscription, fervent gift giving) can seem irrelevant––even to the servants. There's not much you can say in answer to my rant; but perhaps it can prompt you to review your circulation department's standards and practices. (As you know, there's more to marketing than just blowing subscription-seeking cards into each issue.) And maybe you can thwart such dismaying similar occurrences in the future for other admirers and devotees some of whom may well be less loyal than I am.

As ever,
George Soter

From: The New Yorker
2007

We do apologize for you not receiving any notice that your subscription was coming up on expiration, but as there was no coding on your account to not receive renewal notices, we usually assume that the notices go out in the normal fashion. We currently show your subscription is restarting with the May 14, 2007 issue and is paid through May 18, 2009.

Regarding your gift subscriptions, there are four of them that have expired as well, Jacques Decamps, Dr Savas Konstantoglou, Mr-Mrs Tom Menaugh, and Mr-Mrs T Theodorides. Did you wish to renew any of these subscriptions? All of your other gift subscriptions are good through at least the end of 2007.

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Sincerely,
Mike
Case id: 2609767

To: The New Yorker
2007

Dear Sirs:
Your annoying apology was not followed by a satisfactory, or even adequate, explanation. It was merely a description of what I was complaining about––your inexplicable failure to report in time that my subscription was about to expire. Your note further compounded my initial frustration and annoyance by, after the fact, informing me that a number of my gift subscriptions had also expired without my having received prior warning. Before I renew any of these relatively expensive, mostly foreign destination, subscriptions, I will, in this instance (normally I would have simply continued each of the subscriptions upon being notified of their imminent expiration), inquire of each of the recipients if they want to continue receiving your publication before I renew.

Christmas card from George

As I suggested earlier your subscription control standards and practices seem to need some review and/or overhauling. Adding sea salt to my wounds, your boiler plate "welcome back..." salutation in your e-mail was offensive, heralding a warm re-admittance to a party that you had peremptorily shut me out of. A computer-savvy friend suggests that the fault lies in the fact that there may be no human input involved in this contretemps, that it's all part of a pre-programmed computer faultily programmed to do its job. (That might have passed as an explanation.) Is it time to welcome back a human into your customer service and fulfillment affairs? Or at least to seriously review your template options?

Rancorously,
George Soter

From: The New Yorker
2007

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PERSONAL LETTERS
To: Ann Jackson and Eli Wallach, actors
September 10, 2005

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Wallach:

A note of several clarifications from the guy who sat in front of you on the M-5 bus last Thursday night.

As it so often happens at my age, just after you got off the bus, the name of the actor/comic that I was unable to come up with popped into my head. It was Ronny Graham whose name I then googled to find out, in turn, that the movie whose name had also escaped me was “The Substance of Fire” (1996), directed by Daniel Sulllivan. It was based on a play and was about an aging NY publisher determined to publish some holocaust-related material that his family didn’t want him to; it was Graham’s last movie; the cast included Tony Goldwyn, Timothy Hutton, Sarah Jessica Parker, Ron Rifkin, Lee Grant. The evening we saw it, Ms. Jackson and friend were sitting a few rows behind us in the half -enpty theater, and somehow we chatted a moment or two about all of us having recognized the then rarely active Mr. Graham. And that was it.

When I recounted our celebrity encounter and our quick talk on the M-5 to my son Peter (who owns and runs the Morningside Bookshop in the Columbia area), he asked “Did you tell Wallach that you have the same cholesterol schmuts in your left eye that he writes about in his book?” Of course not. But now you know. Peter also asked, “Did you tell Ann Jackson that you had owned the Greek Island Ltd. shop on East 49th Street that she used to come to?” Again, of course not, because I wasn’t aware of it.

One final Graham footnote. I had seen him in “New Faces of 1954”--the same one that unleashed Eartha Kitt--but didn’t know until today’s google that he and Mel Brooks were listed as the co-authors of that still memorable revue.

For me, it was the high spot of the week, my intruding on you last Thursday. It isn’t every day that you can exchange failed memories on the M-5 with two great American actors. Thanks for the many pleaasures you have been responsible for providing, including our bus encounter.

Sincerely,

To: Carol Gardiner, family friend
November 29, 2005

Dear Carol,

I keep collecting things to send you, and then when I actually sit down to write you a few words along with the send-to-Carol items, I spend so much time looking for one of those to-send things that my writing time has evaporated. (Which reminds me of a Virginia Woolf quote, something like this: “It is characteristic of the writing of E.M. Forster, that, whenever I sit down to write about hm, I can’t find my pen.”)

I did find the magazine with an article on your old friend Will Barnet which I enclose in its entirety; I hope you don’t already have it; if you do it, will have been a very unnecessary expense on my part, so buck me up and don’t let me know. Also, I’m including a recent edition of the local neighborhood paper The West Side Spirit which you may remember dimly and which has a report in it of their annual small business awards, the recipient of one being the Morningside Bookshop. I also include a photocopy of a page from the succeeding week’s issue reporting on their awards luncheon with yet another photo of Peter, Amelia and Helena. Once you become a media celebrity, you can’t hide.

As far as the home front goes, it’s fairly slowly downhill for Effie, although she continues to maintain an interest in outside things and people while not exactly remembering what and who they are. I don’t remember if I told you that we have a boarder, Philip, a young man who is a third year Columbia student and a part time worker at the bookstore, and who fills in on weekends as a partime companion--cards and clement weather walks--for Effie. We all do what we can.

The Peter Soters are all well; they all flew to California for a few days to see Frances, Amelia’s mother, who is in the throes of chemotherapy. Nick and company will all be here for about ten days around Christmas which will be good for all of us. Tom and Christine have settled down comfortably to couplehood, and Tom carries on with his Sunday Night Improv performances.

We spent Thanksgiving at Anemona’s which has become a kind of tradition. Pitsa and all the other Hartcollis offspring were there; and then two days later, Anemona’s son Dove had his bar mitsva, and there was a second gathering of the clan.

I want to get this off in today’s mail, so I stop.

GeorgeCarol Gardiner, 2009

To: Francine Pampuzac, family friend
December 1, 2005

Dear, dear Francine: Thank you for your loving and news-filled letter of a few weeks ago plus the great picture of you and your enfants. I enjoyed all the information--even when it was not always pleasant, it was dramatically life-like. I’m sure your decision to leave Generac was hard.

So, now I will try and do the same for you. Please excuse the typing--it’s faster (and more readable and more easily correctible than my handwriting).

The main preoccupation for all of us revolves around Effie. We have a mature woman, Luanne, who is with her every week-day from 9 am to 5 pm and who plays cards with her (the rules often adusted so that Effie wins most of the time), takes her for a walk, and gets her lunch; we also have a 27-year-old young man, Phillip, who is a Columbia student who works part time in Peter’s bookstore and who, when his college living arrangements didn’t work out, Peter suggested that he move into our little maid’s room (with its own toilet) and also act as a companion for Effie on week-ends, and this has been working very well; Effie responds to his attentions, he is very gentle and patient with her in ways that are not always so easy for me and the boys.

One of the many problems typical of Alzheimer patients is that they are unreceptive to small children. Either they resent the attentions that small children receive and which are thus not given to them; or, too, they may find the unpredictability of small children (which the world is charmed by) unnerving. So visits with Peter and Amelia and their daughters always become nervewracking for the rest of us; Effie is mostly sullen and keeps correcting and reprimanding the darling girls which makes everyone unhappy.

One of the odd things about Effie’s behaviour is that she is very content to sit in a movie for two hours even though she has no idea what’s happening on the screen. Part of it is that it’s a social situation where there are no demands on her to do anything but just watch all the giant movements on the big wall. (She has little patience with the TV, unless it is an old Hollywood musical where the plot and who is who doesn’t matter; her comment about a Fred Astaire scene is “He really is a good dancer...isn’t he?” ) As a result, I who love movies, get to see more of them than I might normally do.

Peter and Amelia live nearby--three blocks away; their bookstore is also in the neighborhood, five blocks from our apartment. And Tom, lives in the same area; for about a year he has a girlfriend, Christine, who is originally from Canada, about the same age as he is, and who’s been living with him for the past year; she is very domestic, likes to cook and take care of the house, etc. Tom continues to present his Sunday Night Improv programs which is the main preoccupation of his life. Nick and Dora and their girls (Eva graduated college this Spring and is going on for a Master’s degree) are all doing well; they plan to be here for ten days around Christmas and we all look forward to this annual reunion.George and Effie, 2006

I was particularly delighted to read in your letter that you are doing a kind of literary newsletter, too, for Paris bookstore friends. I’m send you some copies of the one I do for Peter, which he suggested as a way of keeping me occupied and involved. And it has done both of those things. Peter gave me carte blanche, that, yes, I sould promote the bookstore and books but I could do it as indirectly and eccentrically as I wanted. The name “Morningside Bookshop” comes from this Columbia University neighborhood (Morningside Heights) where we’re located which is almost (but in a more specific way) like calling a Paris bookstore Librairie Rive Gauche.

There are many bookstores in this neighborhood, most of them are very intellectual and very much oriented to the university. But the neighborhood also has a large non-university population (people who often want less haute intellectuelle reading matter---novels, mysteries, cookbooks, etc., and Peter feels he can attract them as well as the university people who also look to read for pleasure and entertainment). One of the things we introduced, as you’ll see, was the “literary birthdays of the month” column which enables us each month to give a range of the type of writers we carry--the new and old, fiction and non-fiction--without a boring menu of the writers names. You’ll see how it works. People seem to respond to it; and they also respond to the personal introductory notes. My favorite issue was the August 2005, the orange one, and I got a lot of praise from Morningsiders who were also amants de Paris.

A New York neighborhood newspaper, The West Side Spirit, in its November 17 issue singled out Peter’s store for a Small Business Award; I’m enclosing the pages from that issue that show Peter and Amelia and Helena and also a photcopy from the following week’s issue that showed pictures and comments from the newspaper’s awards luncheon.

I continue to go to an office (AMA--The American Management Association) three days a week for 4 or 5 hours each day. The organization is headquarters of a “management school” for businessmen that has been around for 80 years. They give seminars and classes and have offices throughout America and all over the world. I do copy editing and proofreading of their many classroom syllabuses, catalogues and books. It’s an easy, not too demanding kind of work and, since I have spent all my working days going to an office, I find it in some ways comforting, without, of course, the highs and lows of la vie publicitaire.

As for your invitation for me to come for a farewell visit to Generac in the Spring; it’s a lovely fantasy that I will work on; and, if I can make a plan where Effie can have 24-hour attention while I’m away, I would love to come. We’ll see.

Love and baisers, to you and all the family.
George

PS I haven’t even mentioned the terrible, terrible annees du George Bush that the world is living through these days, or even asked you about the terrible troubles in the Paris suburbs. Maybe, at my age, it’s just easier to just look away.

To: Jacques Decamp, friend and former business associate
February 29, 2006

Dear Jacques,

It was a real pleasure to get your holiday note with all your news--particularly the surprising Greek connection of your grandson--bravo!. (His name, incidentally, in the Greek clipping is “Derek Kams” which took me a few minutes to translate into “Decamps”.)

The enclosed card is a replacement for our usual holiday family photo which I was unable to get out for the holidays and which gives distant friends some idea of how all the Soters look, appearances helped somewhat by the not-wonderful pictures. My oldest son Nick is the father of two daughters, Eva and Zoe; my youngest, Peter, also fathered two daughters, Xanthe and Helena. Middle son Tom is coupled but unmarried and fatherless.

As for Effie, her extremely slow deterioration continues. Superficially, she seems, on social occasions, to be pretty much as she was when we last met. However, she needs constant companionship, help, and care; we have two professional caregivers for eight hours a day, eight days a week. As you may know from your experience with your brother, it is a debilitating situation for all involved. The odd ameliorating factor is that Effie “likes”--much like a four-year-old child--going to the cinema, even though she cannot follow the plot or understand what is hapening on screen she seems to derive two-hours of pleasure from all the giant pictorial and aural acivity and also the fact that she is surrounded by a large cround of undemanding (of her) people. So we see many movies: we try to see foreign ones because the subtitles help make up for our failing ears, and of course my Gallophilia leads me to French films with the mysterious but engaging Cache being the most recent.

I have, for the past decade, been working as a part-time copy editor at The American Management Association, but have chosen to quit; this is my last week of work. My health, except for minor age-related infirmities seems to be OK.

I spend more time than is my usual inclination concerned about the bizarre policies, actions, and mentality of our President, particulalry vis a vis the tragic debacle of Iraq. Although I am not a historian or political thinker, when I first heard him declare that America was “launching a Crusade,” I said what was he looking to do? Start a new Middle Ages Christian-Muslim war? Alas. That’s what he seems to have done.

Apropos of that, I have taken the liberty of subscribing you to the New Yorker magazine which in addition to its cartoons and luxe advertisements has been supplying some of the best political and war reportage of any publication and which, in your moments of USA and Garden City nostalgia, you may find enjoyable. I, in turn, have my own great waves of France nostalgia, almost all the time; but there aren’t any plans in the forseeable future to assuage it beyond French movies and thoughts about re-reading Proust..

Incidentally, my son Peter, continues with his bookstore career, having two years ago bought the bookstore in the Columbia University area where we live and where he began, in high school to work as a partime employee. When he did so, he asked me to write a monthly newsletter--leaving me free to do as I liked--with a minimum of commercial suggestions. It’s been an amusing and involving activity. I’m enclosing a few copies which you may find entertaining. Note especially the French-tilted August 2005 introductio (unfortunately only available in proof format).

Warmest regards to you Jacqueline, and your children.

Amicolement,
George

To: Steve Tremulis, son of childhood friend
August 24, 2008

Dear Steve,
Thank you for sending me Dick's memorial card and your warm words. Although Dick and I hadn't seen much of each other in recent years, our early years were much intertwined, as you can see by the copies of two old photos I'm enclosing-one from the 1920s, one from the 1940s which you may not have already seen.

In the 20s, when I was 4 yeqrs old my mother took me to Greece to visit her parents fur a year (this was before air travel and when you took the 2-week boat trip to Greece, you just didn't go for a weekend). When we came back to the US, I no longer knew much English and I remember (or was often reminded?) that when we visited the Tremulises early on our return, Andonia kept urging Dickie to give Georgie one of his many toy trucks or cars. Dickie reluctantly would pick one out, hand it to me, and then, 2 minutes later, change his mind, want it back, and offer another model; and then repeat the process. But through those early years we saw each other frequently particularly when my absent English returned.

When we both got into high school, even though we were in different ones, we were very close, saw a lot of each other, double dating, but more often going to movies together, sometimes with Homer in tow. While in high school we even got part-time ushering jobs at midtown movie theaters and would take lunch-and-smoke breaks together.

Then, kapow! WWII separated us.

But, after the war I and two other GI friends (one was Chris Alexander who later married Ellie) were at the U of C and had rented a ratty apartment, and Dick was at Art School downtown. But he had been given wheels, and almost every night he would drive up after class and we would more or less party together with card games, dates, music listening, movies, etc.-what later came to be "hanging out," very often while aimlessly driving around.

It was during this period that Dick met your mother Betsy who was a social co-worker of Effie who was to become my wife. For three or four years there, we saw each other on an almost daily basis with a less than great effect on our studies. And even after college was through, with all of us married and working, the hanging out continued, until the mid-50s when my advertising agency job transferred me to New York. And that, thanks to the geographic distance, put an end to our hanging out decade. But, as is often the case, those early years remain indelibly memorable. I particularly recall Alex Tremulis, when we were in our early teens often threatening to take us aside and tell us "the facts of life," at which Dick and I would redden and giggle and hoped he wouldn't because we already knew what they were. (He never did take us aside.)

I hope this little memoir was of some interest to you.

Again, my memories of Dick are inexhaustible. We laughed a lot together and were very fraternal. Again, thanks for your words and your memorial cardand that great US postage stamp.