Grumbles from the Grave (31 page)

TRAVEL BOOK

Editor's Note: In 1953 and 1954, Robert and I took a six-month trip around the world. When we returned, I suggested that Robert write a book about the trip. He wrote half of the book and sent it off to Lurton, to see whether there was or was not a market for it.

It turned out that there was no market for it.

Everyone who read this book loved it, hut no one wanted to publish it. Robert spent some months working on this book. It is too late to publish it now—it's considerably outdated.

August 30, 1954: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I think you had better send the travel book manuscript back and let me finish it. I have spent the whole summer expecting it back in the next mail, frustrated by its half-finished condition, and unable to get to work on anything else. I'll never send out an incomplete ms. again—it is, for me, like having someone read over my shoulder; it keeps me from concentrating on the work in the machine.

A long string of houseguests helped to wash out the summer, too. The last of them are out of the house now and I should be able to finish the travel book quickly. I want to start on my next novel in a couple of weeks. I plan to do the next boys' book first, then an adult serial novel.

EUROPE

January 24, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

We have not yet been able to book our proposed trip, but we still hope to leave about the 1st of May. Don't worry about the trips I take cutting in on writing; in the long run they increase my output and enhance its quality. Anything I do always winds up in a story eventually—and it is most unlikely that we will ever make another trip six months long.

May 10, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

We have luxurious quarters, the owner's cabin, about twice as big as the other passenger staterooms. I don't know how we got it as we did not ask for it, but it is very pleasant. For the first time in a ship I have room enough to write and a comfortable setup for it. I might even turn out a story . . . although this seems unlikely as my mind is comfortably blank.

July 16, 1955: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

How are you? Me, I'm a little confused. I've been in ten countries so far this trip, used nine languages, and thirteen sorts of money including U.S. MPC "funny money" in which $10 bills are printed in bright red and a nickel scrip looks like a cigar coupon. I've just finished calculating a trip into the Arctic Circle (which we start tomorrow morning) which involves marks, guilders, Belgian francs, and three sorts of kroner, all at different rates. I came out within about 10 percent of the right answer, which is better than I expected.

* * *

Ginny has been spending money with joyful frenzy and everything costs six times what it should. I think I have money enough with us to cover everything, but I am no longer sure. Could you please send me a thousand dollars in American Express drafts (the only sort which is really easy to exchange everywhere) to the Heidelberg address above? Deus volent, I will still have them in my pocket when we reach New York, but I will feel easier if I have them. We will be back on the 6th of August; then we go to Bayreuth so that Ginny can sop up Wagner (the Ring Cycle) while I sop up beer—then home by easy stages. I estimate that we will be in New York about the 9th or 10th of September, but anything could happen between now and then.

LAS VEGAS

April 22, 1959: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

We're back home and not quite broke—in fact, I didn't even manage to use up all of some traveller's cheques I bought in New York over a year ago, and now we have money running out of our ears, with all taxes paid. Ginny worked hard on the slot machines, did not manage to drop behind more than five dollars all week. I played the slots very little, craps one evening, and put a few chips on roulette
en passant
and broke about even—I wasn't there to gamble anyhow. One member of our party, a boy I went to Annapolis with, gambled all week, splurged on night clubs, etc., and returned to Colorado Springs with more money than he had started out with. I can't claim that, but I will say that they practically give you the joint free—provided you don't drop a lot of dough at the tables. Gourmet food is cheap, the most lavish night clubs in the entire world are very cheap, equivalent hotel rooms are about half what they would cost in New York. I understand that the taxis are expensive, but we hired a new Chevvie and never entered a taxi.

The Congress of Flight was almost the size of a World's Fair, with the most remarkable demonstrations and exhibits I have ever seen anywhere . . . The static exhibits included such things as the Atlas, Thor-Able, X-15, manned re-entry capsule for Project Mercury—and the 1911 Bleriot monoplane. The dynamic exhibits had everything, from several types of bombing to the most frightening precision flying I have ever seen—half a dozen nations each trying to bilge the others and the Chinese Nationalists stealing the show with a nine-plane diamond tight formation that did things I still don't believe. Nobody killed—although we in the audience almost had heart failure.

* * *

Las Vegas is sort of an organized nervous breakdown. We are exhausted, sunburned, and euphoric . . . But the three largest bookstores in town do not sell science fiction—I looked for some of my own to give to friends—no dice.

To my great delight my name tag was read and recognized every few minutes all week long—a large percentage of the delegates read science fiction.

SOUTHWEST TRIP

March 9, 1956: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

We are just back from an eight-day swing of Albuquerque, Las Cruces, and Portales, a very enjoyable time which included seeing friends at Sandia Weapons Center, the AEC [Atomic Energy Commission], a rocket society do at White Sands, seeing ---- ----'s new baby, photographing the gypsum sands, a real dust-bowl storm with the sun blacked out and silt up to the fence tops, a visit on a cattle ranch, lecturing at the University of New Mexico, getting stuck in the mud, and encountering quite a bit of sunshine and warm weather after a very hard winter. I am now trying to clear my desk.

USSR

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The start of the May Day Parade, Soviet Union, 1960.

August 15, 1960: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

Well, I'm home and completely swamped by the volume of work in front of me. I've spent the past four days just trying to get enough stuff put away and thrown away so that I can get at my desk to write. As soon as I finish this letter I will get to work on an attempt to try to revise and extend the Intourist article along the lines you suggested—but, truthfully, trying to write humorously about the USSR won't be easy. Ginny and I laughed ourselves silly time and again, but it was hysterical laughter; there is not much that is really funny about the place.

Editor's Note: Robert wrote two articles about this trip; they can be found in
Expanded Universe
.

ALMA

May 15, 1961: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

We went to Alma, Oklahoma, on April 29th, using a chartered airplane and getting it all done in one day. "The Sequoyah Book Award" turns out to be a handsome plaque. I addressed the State Library Association and they had a book-signing afterwards—and durn if they hadn't sold almost two hundred copies of
Have Space Suit—Will Travel.

Scribner's offered to pay for the trip, but I preferred not to be under obligations to them while there is such continuous pressure on me to quit Putnam's and go back to Scribner's. Anyhow, it cost less than two roundtrip commercial tickets and considerably less than it would have cost to drive it—and it's deductible. Anyhow, arriving by private plane added to the show.

SAN DIEGO

July 12, 1962: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

My short trip to San Diego and to sea was terrific. A day under the sea in the submarine
Raton
, spent with destroyers hunting us and trying to (simulate) depth bombing—which they do with grenades, which make a terrible racket but, at most, break a light bulb—then we flew aboard the carrier
Lexington
, spent the night watching night operations, then day operations the next day, then flew back to Colorado Springs—elapsed time C.S. to C.S. fifty-four hours and almost no sleep. The night landings were made by supersonic fighters, Demons (F3H), and it was the most exciting—and the noisiest—thing I've ever seen. She's an angle-deck carrier and landings and catapulting go on simultaneously, one of each about every thirty seconds—and they hit at about 130 miles per hour and roar away if they miss the wire. Besides that, I was recognized repeatedly, which boosts my morale. The icing on the cake was a birthday party in the air for me on the way home. Much fun!

LAS VEGAS AGAIN

September 30, 1962: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I've got to bathe, shave, dress, and run—the Houston trip was fast and frantic; the Las Vegas trip was long and delightful. Ginny hit several nickel jackpots, I did not gamble at all but saw all the shows . . . The space and aircraft exhibits were magnificent, there were many fine parties and three open bars, and a fine firepower show—bombing, Thunderbirds, refueling in the air, the new planes, and a joint AF and Army Strike demonstration. And we saw many old friends. The Folies Bergere was as always, and the Lido de Paris show better and more lavish than ever.

ANTARCTICA

December 28, 1963: Robert A. Heinlein to Lurton Blassingame

I think I told you by phone that
Popular Mechanics
wants me to do another article, or several. Since then we have tentatively agreed on a subject for the next one: the research going on at the South Pole. I had in mind going there next year, but Stimson's last letter spoke in terms of right away. Since summer has just started at the South Pole this is reasonable—save that I am up to my ears in this Hollywood deal with Screen Gems. The trip need not take long—ten days or two weeks—but if I am to go at all this [Southern Hemisphere] summer, it must be in the next few weeks, with conflict most probable with the Screen Gems deal. . . .

If it does work out that I go now instead of about a year from now (anytime after Labor Day 1964, that is), this would solve the problem of what to use for a
Boys' Life
serial: Lay it at the South Pole and make it a mixture of science and adventure. And that would also solve the problem of my next juvenile for Putnam's—three novellas totaling about 50,000 words,
Nothing Ever Happens on the Moon
,
Tenderfoot on Venus
, and
Polar Scout
. [Putnam] has written me, twisting my arm a little to turn out another juvenile; this would satisfy [Putnam] for the '65 spring list, I think. If you see fit, you might ask
Boys' Life
if they would like a serial about Antarctica, one written from personal observation.

I should add that I told
Popular Mechanics
that, having given them a first article, I reserved the right to do other articles and fiction based on the trip. They want to pay only what they paid before . . . I could hitchhike the entire trip on military "space available," but I am more likely to go commercially to Auckland. But I can show a nice profit by writing other things on the same material.

Editor's Note: This trip did not come off but we did travel to Antarctica in 1983.

CARIBBEAN

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