Below is the text of a paper letter I sent from Arlington, Massachusetts, in September 1995, to a friend in Texas. Most of the letters I sent that year are trapped on a disk readable by an ancient world processing machine that’s in our laundry room, but ones from September through November (for some reason) were written using another machine, copies of whose documents are more accessible.

The last time I fired up that ancient machine — some years ago — it worked, but retrieving the text would either mean printing every page, or taking pictures of the screen for every page. Either would be time-consuming, so it’s possible that that correspondence will be as lost as the Amber Room, except that no one cares.

Got your e-note this morning when I got in. We’ve got a correspondence going! Reason enough to like the new medium, no matter what the neo-Luddites think. But I won’t quit letter or postcards. As you can see.

Sorry to hear about your current difficulties. What happened to your car? Thought it was up & running. Maybe your can learn to live without a TV, though.

No need to replace Nabih Berri the Ficus. Sic transit gloria mundi. (Sic transit gloria fici?). Gone, but not forgotten. A plant among plants, it was.

My friends Matt and Jill from Australia have come and gone. Fine people, but exhausting. They’re out to see America between beers. Did get to try a pretty good Mexican restaurant near Harvard Square during their visit. The place has Lone Star Beer. Hm.

Want to get away, before it’s absolutely freezing, to Montreal. Don’t know when yet, but of course you will be informed by postcard. I’ve bought some maps and a guide to the city at my company’s expense, because we do genuinely need them for research, besides the fact that I might use them myself. We have an account at Globe Corner Bookstore on Boylston Street, and all I have to do is sign my name. Now that’s an expense account.

Cold (for September) (high 50s) and miserable outside. Gotta go home through it anyway. More anon.

I had just started using email that summer, as mentioned. I’m not sure anymore what his “current difficulties” were, but it sounds like car repairs and a burned out TV.

As for Nabih Berri the Ficus, that was a twisted ficus of mine that died that year. As for why I called it that, call it youthful whimsy. I think he was in the news when I originally got the plant. I was surprised to learn today that he original Nabih Berri is still alive.
As for Montreal, we didn’t make it that year. It had to wait till 2002.