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In this thread I will post quotations from the book "Unabomber: The Secret Life of Ted Kaczynski" by Chris Waits.
It covers the twenty-five years Ted lived in a cabin near Lincoln, Montana, and contains information about his writing and reading habits.
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On the region where Ted lived
>"His small acreage and one-room, 12-by-10-foot primitive cabin, with a wood stove but no electricity, was on a jumping off spot to an isolated primeval world of rippling streams, westslope cutthroat trout, mule deer and regal elk. Parts of this world haven't seen a human soul since the last of the gold miners deserted their sluice boxes in the late 1920s. [...] For a hermit-like man looking for total isolation, this was the spot."
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On Ted's demeanour
>"Ted's most distinguishing was his demeanour. He was the most solemn and serious person I have ever met. [...] His seriousness was much less noticeable in the early years; as time passed it became far stronger. He was always friendly and spoke cordially to me, but he was always deep in thought."
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Shouldn't you be working on our biography, tedbro?
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On Ted's social preferences
>"When Ted stopped at my Lincoln shop just to visit I felt almost honored, because I never saw him go anywhere except to conduct business, such as buying groceries. But for him to stop, conditions had to be just right. The big garage doors [...] had to be opened wide, and I had to be alone. It became quickly obvious our visits had to be one-on-one. If someone stopped while Ted was there, he'd be gone like a puff of smoke, disappearing even in the middle of a sentence. At first it seemed like odd behaviour, until I gradually concluded that he was extremely shy and guarded around other people."
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On Ted's relationship with animals
>"Our dogs could smell him, and they hated him. He hated them as well. It seemed like all animals reacted aggressively towards Ted."
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On Ted's control over his emotions
>"I almost never saw Ted stray far from his measured and controlled demeanour. I never saw him euphoric, whimsical, elated; he never laughed uncontrollably, acted happy-go-lucky or anything even close. His occasional chuckle or light giggle always seemed to be more of a sneer, or sarcastic laugh, but it was always very controlled. I've never seen a person - obviously so full of anger - who had so much control over his emotions His mood would become even more solemn as the years went by, something that was very noticeable."
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On Ted's diet and fondness for graham crackers
>"In the early years, he'd prepare for winter by laying in a large supply of groceries, mostly canned foods. After his gardens developed and he built his root cellar, Ted relied less on store-bought groceries and more on his own crops and game. When he went to town for groceries, he wouldn't ever buy junk food. He loved graham crackers, though. One time he bought six boxes of generic graham crackers, loaded them into his pack and rode home."
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On Ted's bicycle
>"At times Ted's bike chain would squeak so loudly I don't know how he could stand it. Whenever he rode up Stemple past my home and I was out in the yard, I could hear him coming long before I'd see him. Since he was afraid of our dogs, his pedalling, speed and squeaking would pick up tempo as he neared my driveway, until it reached a frenzied pace."
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On Ted's run-in with a mule
>"One day as Ted rode from his home cabin down along the fence line on the south end of the field, the mule trotted over and began to chase him. Ted tried to outrun the mule, but the critter was faster and started to catch up. While looking over his shoulder to see how fast the mule was gaining, Ted hit a hole in the road and piled up his bike. Bitch and a couple of friends who were watching laughed, but Ted wasn't amused."
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On Ted's lack of employment
>"To my knowledge Ted worked only two, short-lived jobs in all the years he lived in Lincoln. When he first moved to Florence Gulch he cut posts to sell at a local post-and-pole manufacturing operation [...] his second bit of employment was peeling logs for Butch Gehring during the mid-'80s, a pretty strenuous job of skinning the bark off with a drawknife [...] Ted didn't last more than a couple of hours before he walked off the job, saying that peeling logs wasn't for him."
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On Ted adapting to his environment
>"It just didn't seem to matter to him, the cold, the physical work, the inconvenience, anything. If he were caught too far from his campsite or either cabin he would just roll up in his coat - no matter where he was, at the edge of a meadow or in the trees - lie down and spend the night."
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