This is a little different.
It's a scan of the two sides of a postcard. A reprint request to be more precise and my first ever. Someone was asking for a reprint of my first publication. It was based on an experiment I did during my first year in graduate school.
That felt pretty good - to know that someone else was interested in my work. Actually it could have been a lot of things, but I chose to believe it was interest. So when I look at this I'm reminded of that wonderful feeling. I am also taken back to my first year in graduate school. It may have been the single best year of my 21 years of schooling. I was certainly at my best as a student that year.
Oh, there is one other thing and that's where did this the request come from. It came from someone in the German Democratic Republic (GDR or DDR), generally known by the 'free world' as East Germany. Mail from behind the Iron Curtain! Now that's something to think about and raises all kinds of questions - who, what, why, etc. I guess today I'd have to worry about being placed on an NSA watch list.
Anyway I've kept it for forty years. It's a powerful talisman for me,
I am a fortunate man. Life's been good to me so far.
TGB
