Sharing the Search

Sir: Your cover story on James Taylor [March 1] was a delight. The Taylors personify the sort of torment and genesis of the young today. I am pleased that they are sharing their search with us.

MIKE OTIS Fulton, N.Y.

Sir: Here we go again. All the prerequisites for musical success are outlined there--confusion, insecurity, alienation, drug affliction. How ironic that this morass of self-pity is to be preferred over adult hang-ups. Oh, for the shaggy innocence of I Want to Hold Your Hand!

LARRY TYLER Lawrence, Kans.

Sir: Your article infuriated me, but hard rock is far from dead. And the more adults --and magazines like TIME--who plan on its funeral, the less likely it is that there will be one. Adults have a terrible record when it comes to predicting trends in pop music.

BETH ANDERSON Albuquerque

Sir: James Taylor sings only too well the epilogue of a generation that has ridden too high for too long.

RANDY JANNEY Portland, Ore.

Sir: I am not sure whether to thank you for your article on James Taylor or to cry about it. All the references to his joy of privacy mean nothing, since by doing the spread you are violating that joy even while you write sympathetically about it.

KATHLEEN WICKERT Alexandria, Va.

Sir: We who live rock 'n' roll do not need your straight press to tell us who our superstars are. The country is full of competent professional musicians, of whom James Taylor is one.

I enjoy "bittersweet and low" rock once in a while, like after a lot of good hard funky rock 'n' roll. Tell Mr. Bender to turn up his headphones and listen to the heavies--if he can hear them.

CONRAD N. DE GENNARO Springfield, Va.

Sir: Your genealogical garden

Grows quite contrary

Because you have omitted

Peter, Paul and Mary.

BOB LAMBERT Williamsport, Pa.

Chaste Ideals

Sir: As an incorrigible sentimentalist and advocate of the antiquated fundamental values of human life, I resented Gerald Clarke's distasteful parody [March 1] on a rare, decent book. Must all the chaste ideals left for us to hold sacred be indignantly slandered in this manner when there exists such a preponderance of depravity yet to assail?

SUSAN E. LELLI Arlington, Va.

Sir: A bestseller may be a bit of a sob story or perhaps even related to the soap opera. Yet Love Story, in its Pollyannish way, does seem to be a purgative of sorts. Your parody, on the other hand, may be "a bestseller bested" or it may be pure pollutant.

(MRS.) SUSANNAH P. LOCKE Milwaukee

Sir: I didn't care all that much for Segal's version, but yours was infinitely worse.

BERT BILSKY Milwaukee

Sir: What can you say about a man who takes the No. 1 marshmallow, sob story of the year, and turns it into a one-page masterpiece? I'm surprised it didn't happen sooner.

PAM CLOUSE Garden Grove, Calif.

Giving Up the Forest

Sir: Are you so sure that the tranquillity described in "The Cooling of America" [Feb. 22] is not the result of activity rather than frustration or fear?

The students are out individually and in small groups committing themselves to the ideas and ideals that have been voiced so strongly in recent years. They are showing that individual effort can do what bureaucracy will not or cannot do. They have given up the forest for the trees.

KATHLEEN WILSON The Bronx

Sir: I think you are both premature and extremely shortsighted to proclaim the demise of student activism and the crumbling of the counterculture. There may be a new mood, but I do not feel that it is that of a dying revolution. A revolution can take different forms. Your article seemed to be a generalized, superficial treatment of a movement that includes a thousand different individuals.

Try probing a little deeper. Not all of us fit into statistics.

MICHEAL MERRILL Cincinnati

Sir: Make no mistake about it--along with the cooling there is an accelerated simmering. At last we are quite ready to support our children to the fullest when they say "Hell no, we won't go!"

ANNE T. PETRO Northfield, Ohio

Sir: It is only a surface cooling that we are witnessing. Underneath is a seething volcanic mass of resentment against war, crime, poverty, pollution, drug addiction, inflation, etc.

When this volcanic mass of resentment again erupts, let us all hope it will be constructive instead of destructive.

ELMER N. STUETZER St. Louis

Hustling to the Chase

Sir: The enthusiasm generated by the possibility of a four-day work week [March 1] is evidence of the great American misconception: that happiness and fulfillment can be purchased through material goods and leisure time. The four-day worker is really saying: "I don't like my job. It is too dull, or too hectic, or whatever. Let me finish it as quickly as possible and get on with something I enjoy."

What we ought to be searching for are ways of life and occupations that embody what we like to do. This could give us seven days a week of fulfillment, rather than four days of hustling spent to pay for three days of chasing after "the good life."

BRUCE F. HISCOCK Remsen, N.Y.

Sir: I was interested in Jerry Goucher's enjoying his four-day week by "cramming in everything on Friday--dentists, doctors, shopping."

Has he made plans for the time when dentists, doctors and retail-store clerks may decide that they are as entitled to three-day weekends as are wheel finishers?

HARRY M. REYNOLDS Grinnell, Iowa

Denial

Sir: Delta Air Lines is deeply concerned about your story "The Hero Galley" [Feb. 15]. It depicts Lieut. William Galley as someone who, in recent weeks, has become the recipient of numerous favors and gratuities. It relates that Delta's Columbus, Ga., station personnel have "wired ahead for VIP treatment."

We have checked the matter with our Columbus station personnel. They have denied that they have ever given or requested VIP treatment for Lieut. Galley.

Delta has never authorized preferential or VIP treatment for the lieutenant.

JAMES L. EWING Manager, News Bureau Delta Air Lines, Inc. Atlanta

Wry and Squinchy-Eyed

Sir: We were rather proud to have Artist John Marin [Feb. 22] among us as a resident of Cliffside Park, N.J., when I was a roving reporter for the Palisadian back in the days of Harry Truman.

At one period, I was assigned to John Marin and came back to our grubby little office rather dazed by what I had seen in the no-nonsense studio and by the personality of the artist. I was particularly impressed by the fact that this immensely gifted man made his own frames and took pleasure doing it. A year later, when Marin was cited "the greatest living" and so forth, I did the inevitable followup.

My first question was, naturally: "How does it feel to be the greatest living American artist?" He looked wry and squinchy-eyed as he replied: "If America can stand it--I can."

MAURICE FRANZ Alburtis, Pa.

What It's About

Sir: "People here care about you" stands out in your tongue-in-cheek article on Schuyler Hall [March 1], because that's what it's all about, isn't it, whether you are a "swinging Columbia student" or wear a tie for dinner?

Caring is what we sing about, write about, talk endlessly about--and do nothing about. Schuyler does. Its students dare to do, and to be free of the mindless conformity of nonconformity.

MARY E. COOK Sharon, Mass.

Sir: I suppose the day had to come when normal students leading a sane, healthy life would be labeled conservatives, and their home, in this case Schuyler Hall, compared with a cloister. May we freedom-loving Schuylerites rise up in protest against such flip comparisons, while still shunning "radical activism"?

JOHN E. SOLARSKI JR. Director Schuyler Hall Manhattan

Abandoned

Sir: Contrary to what you said in your article on the Duvalier dynastic plans, "Enter Mama Doc" [Feb. 22], the first and legal wife of Max Dominique was paid no money whatsoever. On the contrary, she was stripped of her property, deprived of any possibility of earning a living in Haiti, until she had no choice but to leave the island. She left alone. Her two children had been taken from her.

The first Mrs. Max Dominique lives modestly in the U.S. She is a beautiful young woman of intelligence and quiet dignity. She has not seen her children in five years, nor has she heard from them.

ZELDA POPKIN Rockville, Md.

No Grip

Sir: Steam fitters everywhere can be thankful that the writer of the item on apprentice examinations [March 1] has nothing to do with writing those exams.

A monkey wrench is not a pipe-working tool because the inside of its jaws are smooth, and it cannot grip pipe. A Stillson wrench has the serrated jaws and toggle action needed to grip pipe.

ROBERT S. EWART Hot Springs, Ark.

Only in the Classroom

Sir: Laffer's reasoning that businessmen and consumers will spend every cent they get their hands on [Feb. 22] works only in the 72DEG comfort of his classroom. After the worst inflation in 20 years, retail sales do riot indicate that consumers are spending every cent they get. Just as business is being given a tax decrease in the form of accelerated depreciation, so also should consumers get a tax cut. Then they will regain their confidence and start spending again.

SAMUEL B. GARBER Greensboro, N.C.

Everybody Pays

Sir: President Nixon's health care proposals seem a little more sane than those of Senator Kennedy. If we must have some form of subsidized medicine [March 1], a $3 billion outlay seems quite preferable to the Senator's $50 billion proposal. Besides, with the Nixon plan, everybody pays at least a little. The Government giveaways have got to stop.

JOSEPH P. MARTIN Rockville, Md.

Sir: Taking many of the inequities within the health industry for granted, the problem often centers on one thing: Americans, given the choice, would often rather pay to repair their car or TV than themselves.

JONATHAN L. STOLZ, M.D. Philadelphia

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