Expanded Universe

FOREWORD

You may not be old enough to remember the acute housing shortage following World War II (the subject of this story) but if you are over six but not yet old enough for the undertaker, you are aware of the current problem of getting in out of the rain... a problem especially acute for the young couple with one baby and for the retired old couple trying to get by on Social "Security" plus savings if any. (I am not suggesting that it is easy for those between youth and old age; the present price of mortgage money constitutes rape with violence; the price tag on an honestly - constructed - if you can find one - two - bedroom house makes me feel faint.)

In 1960 in Moscow Mrs. Heinlein and I had as Intourist courier a sweet child named Ludmilla - 23, unmarried, living with her father, mother, brother and sisters. She told us that her ambition in life was for her family not to have to share a bathroom with another family.

The next aesthete who sneers at our American "plumbing culture" in my presence I intend to cut into small pieces and flush him down that W.C. he despises.

Any old pol will recognize the politics in this story as the Real McCoy. Should be. Autobiographical in many details. Which details? Show me a warrant and I'll take the Fifth.