LETTERS FROM HOME: THE MARVELS OF `BABE' WATCH'

Oct. 21, 1993

Dear Larry,

This won't be a pep talk. But I have been in similar situations where circumstances changed abruptly, and that well-known, well-hidden silver lining was discovered only long afterward. Now, it looks to you as though up is down, left is right, and you are lost without a map. Now is scary.

You have spent much of your life aspiring, proving yourself worthy of more and more responsibility and compensation time upon time, always keeping faith that sacrifice and hard work will be rewarded.

And they were, until now. While you weren't looking the rules got badly twisted.

From one point of view that has taken root in American business, there is no such thing as enough profit, nothing more expendable than a man or woman who have outlived their usefulness, no one less fortunate than those who appear as mere glitches in the newest program.

This is not fair, but it is the way it is. That makes it no less appalling. What subterfuge to blame Darwin when it is our own greed and bigotry that hold sway.

I have not easily identified with these qualities in others, perhaps an act of denial to keep from losing hope that treating people with magnanimity and respect is good manners and business.

Perhaps you are being forced to reexamine your essential allegiances. Certainly your family is more important to you now than your company ever was. I cannot know how much you gave where. I do know that one place gave up on you, and the other never will.

The little guy who stands in front of the TV during "`Babe' Watch" and twirls his blanket into a cape to play Power Ranger -- whoever that may be -- knows your true worth to be incalculable. You are as constant in his life as sunshine, and as taken for granted.

Maybe this time is for playing ball with him, measuring his height and falling exhausted on the floor in a family dog pile. You could do worse.

When I saw you, you looked as if someone very close had just died. Maybe he has. He was quite a guy. Played by the rules. Responsibilities R Us. Consider it done. Need help? Call Larry.

I did. You didn't find me a job, but you took me to Wrigley Field. Guess which one means more to me.

So now, I wonder if you can let it be otherwise. Let others help. Share the load. Maybe goof off a bit. Watch "`Babe' Watch."

You're thinking of returning home, trimming back your expectations. When I came home, mine just kind of naturally changed for the better. Less became more. Some kind of search had been completed.

DC says that FEAR is False Expectations Accepted as Reality. I don't think she originated the saying or owns the fear franchise. Lots of people wake up running a low-level fever, trying to make sense of the headlines and half expecting to find their name among the obituaries.

You and I are different from each other. You have always climbed steadily uphill. I have swung to and fro in the branches and at times have burrowed into the sand up to my navel, the better to contemplate it.

You have been working on this hill a long time. What's on the other side?

Love, Sam