THIS I BELIEVE

I am not going to talk about religious beliefs but about matters so obvious that it has gone out of style to mention them. I believe in my neighbors. I know their faults, and I know that their virtues far outweigh their faults.

Take Father Michael down our road a piece. I'm not of his creed, but I know that goodness and charity and lovingkindness shine in his daily actions. I believe in Father Mike. If I'm in trouble, I'll go to him.

My next-door neighbor is a veterinary doctor. Doc will get out of bed after a hard day to help a stray cat. No fee-no prospect of a fee-I believe in Doc.

I believe in my townspeople. You can knock on any door in our town saying, "I'm hungry," and you will be fed. Our town is no exception. I've found the same ready charity everywhere. But for the one who says, "To heck with you-I got mine," there are a hundred, a thousand who will say, "Sure, pal, sit down."

I know that despite all warnings against hitchhikers I can step to the highway, thumb for a ride and in a few minutes a car or a truck will stop and someone will say, "Climb in Mac-how far you going?"

I believe in my fellow citizens. Our headlines are splashed with crime yet for every criminal there are 10,000 honest, decent, kindly men. If it were not so, no child would live to grow up. Business could not go on from day to day. Decency is not news. It is buried in the obituaries, but it is a force stronger than crime. I believe in the patient gallantry of nurses and the tedious sacrifices of teachers. I believe in the unseen and unending fight against desperate odds that goes on quietly in almost every home in the land.

I believe in the honest craft of workmen. Take a look around you. There never were enough bosses to check up on all that work. From Independence Hall to the Grand Coulee Dam, these things were built level and square by craftsmen who were honest in their bones.

I believe that almost all politicians are honest...there are hundreds of politicians, low paid or not paid at all doing their level best without thanks or glory to make our system work. If this were not true we would never have gotten past the thirteen colonies.

I believe in Rodger Young. You and I are free today because of endless unnamed heroes from Valley Forge to the Yalu River. I believe in-I am proud to belong to -- the United States. Despite shortcomings from lynchings to bad faith in high places, our nation has had the most decent and kindly internal practices and foreign policies to be found anywhere in history.

And finally, I believe in my whole race. Yellow, white, black, red, brown. In the honesty, courage, intelligence, durability, and goodness of the overwhelming majority of my brothers and sisters everywhere on this planet. I am proud to be a human being. I believe that we have come this far by the skin of our teeth. That we always make it just by the skin of our teeth, but that we will make it. Survive. Endure. I believe that this hairless embryo with the aching, oversize brain case and the opposable thumb, this animal barely up from the apes will endure. Will endure longer than his home planet-will spread out to the stars and beyond, carrying with him his honesty and his insatiable curiosity, his unlimited courage and his noble essential decency.

This I believe with all my heart.

Robert's talk got a standing ovation. I don't take credit for that; it was his -- speech, his ideas. There were other speakers, too. Jerry Pournelle gave

* some reminiscences of Robert; Catherine and L. Sprague de Camp did much the same thing. Tom Clancy told how Robert's work had taught him to write. Captain Jon McBride (an astronaut) gave credit to Robert for his early work on spaceflight; Dr. Charles Sheffield told how Robert was not an American writer, but a British one...and Tetsu Yano, all the way from Tokyo, talked about his work in translating Robert's work-weeping at the end for Robert's loss.

Then there was a showing of Destination Moon.

The entire evening (with the exception of the motion picture) was videotaped, and I am very anxious to obtain a copy. It has been said that if enough people write in to ask how to obtain tapes for their own use, they might be sold by NASA.

Among those present were Robert's oldest friend, Rear Admiral Cal Laning; Rear Admiral and Mrs. J. Gal-braith; and Woodie Teague, who came all the way from Colorado Springs. I had all those over to the hotel for a drink afterwards. (And a few others, too.)

The following evening, Eleanor Wood, Jim Baen, and I went out to the Kondo's new home in Columbia, MD for a party. A very nice party, with lots of old friends there. Next day, Eleanor and I went up to NY, and I saw more old friends-took Margo Fischer to lunch on Sunday-she's now 87, I think, and each time I see her, I think to myself it might be the last time.

Spent the rest of the weekend and a couple of days of the following week up in the country with Eleanor, and her kids; the fall colors were on display, and it was lovely.

Arrived home with a king-sized case of jet lag, got Pixel out of the kennel, and now we've settled down for the winter. No rain so far, but I do hope there will be! -- we're on water restrictions now, and it could get a lot worse, if we don't get a lot of rain here.

BIBLIOGRAPHY (In order of publication)

FICTION

"Life-Line," Astounding Science Fiction, August 1939. Reprinted in The Man Who Sold The Moon, Baen Books.

"Misfit," Astounding Science Fiction, November 1939. Reprinted in The Past Through Tomorrow, Ace Books.

"Requiem," Astounding Science Fiction, January 1940. Reprinted in The Past Through Tomorrow, Ace Books.

"If This Goes On -- ," Astounding Science Fiction, February, March 1940. Reprinted in The Past Through Tomorrow, Ace Books.

" 'Let There Be Light,' " Super Science Stones, May, 1940 (under pseudonym Lyle Monroe). Reprinted in The Man Who Sold The Moon, Baen Books.

"The Roads Must Roll," Astounding Science Fiction, June 1940. Reprinted in The Man Who Sold The Moon, Baen Books.

"Coventry," Astounding Science Fiction, July 1940. Reprinted in The Past Through Tomorrow, Ace Books.

"Blowups Happen," Astounding Science Fiction, September 1940. Reprinted in The Man Who Sold The Moon, Baen Books.

"The Devil Makes the Law," Unknown, September 1940, (under pseudonym Anson MacDonald). Reprinted as "Magic, Inc.," in Waldo And Magic Inc., Del Rey Books.

"Sixth Column," Astounding Science Fiction, January, February, March 1941 (under pseudonym Anson MacDonald). Reprinted by Baen Books.

" ' -- And He Built a Crooked House -- ,' " Astounding Science Fiction, February 1941.

"Logic of Empire," Astounding Science Fiction, March 1941. Reprinted in The Green Hills of Earth, Baen Books.

"Beyond Doubt," Astonishing Stories, April 1941 (under pseudonym Lyle Monroe and Elma Wentz).

"They," Unknown, April 1941.

"Universe," Astounding Science Fiction, May 1941. Reprinted in Orphans Of The Sky, Ace Books.

"Solution Unsatisfactory," Astounding Science Fiction, May 1941 (under pseudonym Anson MacDonald). Reprinted in Expanded Universe, Ace Books.

" ' -- We Also Walk Dogs,' " Astounding Science Fiction, July 1941 (under pseudonyn Anson MacDonald). Reprinted in The Past Through Tomorrow, Ace Books.

Methuselah's Children, Astounding Science Fiction, July, August, September, 1941.

"Elsewhere" ("Elsewhen"), Astounding Science Fiction, September 1941 (under pseudonym Caleb Saunders). Reprinted in Assignment In Eternity, Baen Books.

"By His Bootstraps," Astounding Science Fiction, October 1941 (under pseudonym Anson MacDonald). Reprinted in The Menace From Earth, Baen Books.