February 16, 1943

Feb 16, 1943

425 S Cabrillo

San Pedro Calif

Dear father and mother and the folks at home,

This last week has been really warm in Calif. — much warmer than ordinarily at this time of the year. The nights also have been considerable warmer than usual which is peculiar since even tho the days may be warm the nights are usual [sic] cool. Several days I am certain the temperature has been 85°F or better. Today I was very comfortable walking downtown in my shirt sleeves. The air was very clear today. you could see the outline of the mountains across the bay which has happened only a couple of times since I cam out here. From the Watson station, when I am waiting for the P.E. in the morning I can usually see snow-capped mountains in the interior but I guess that they really must be a considerable distance inalnd, altho some of the details see quite clear.

There doesn’t seem to be a lot to write about this time but I will try to make out a decent letter anyway altho you make [sic] think I am writing to fill up space part of the time.

I got a valentine from Vivian on Monday and it was a picture of herself. I suppose that you may have gotten one also. Personally I thought it was a good picture of her and very typical because she is smiling a great big wide smile. It was a very nice valentine I thought.

Thank you mama, also, for your “valentine” letter and you father for your letter. Why don’t you write too, Verner?

I am very anxious to hear how Vincent came out in his application for meteorological training. That is pretty interesting stuff I think from what experience I have had with it, and what is more may be very useful after the war is over because as I believe I wrote to you from Iowa City, meteorology has had its face lifted in the last decade or so and a lot of new opportunities are presenting themselves in that field.

Last night the Luther League cabinet met to arrange the next program as is the usual custom. It was relatively simple this time as we will have the Fellowship Program for the program and this had been largely planned already bu the L.L. headquarters. All I will have to do is announce what’s going on which is a nice easy think I think.

I have been getting along with less sleep lately and I have not been sleepy at work either. This may have been due to the fact that I am running some sulfur analyses now and as these are somewhat new to me and a little tricky, they keep your attention pretty well. Furthermore, the work has sort of piled up again so that there is more to do than you can accomplish. Last night was a hectic night. There were 4 distillations going — 3 at the rate of 5 ml/minute part of the time so that they required almost constant attention and then later at different rates so you had to look at them rather often. The other was a micro-distillation which I started on my shift.

Starting a distillation always takes time and this one took more since the column and everything had been dismantled and had to be assembled before it could be begun. Then there were 5 bromine values to get (and I could have run a couple of more if I had had the time) and the samples hadn’t been caustic washing yet so I had to do that to [sic]. Then there were the afore-mentioned sulfur analyses with which I am inexperienced and which I could have paid more attention to profitably. In sulfur analyses of petroleum stocks as gasoline, a weighted quantity of sample is burned and the SO₂ produced oxidized to H₂SO₄ by NaOBr soln & the SO₄ determine by BaSO₄ precipitation under conditions such that nephelometric (light dispersion) properties of the resulting sol’n or mixture are related to the SO₄-concentration. Burning the sample is an art and I have not exactly got it yet.

Last night one of the samples I was running burned beautifully but the other was high in aromatic content and I had an awful time. One of them (they are run in duplicate) smoked very badly which renders the analyses somewhat doubtful. This last occurred when I was taking care of the other or remaining article on the menu for the night, namely looking at Plant VII to see that things were operating ok and taking some data.

This morning I felt sort of used up. When you have a lot of things to look after, you have difficulty sometimes in remembering everything. Last night I made only one real boner and that was in mh bromine value analyses. These have become so mechanical that I sometimes do not watch too closely what I am doing. Anyway after diluting the samples in CCl₄ I neglected to homogenize the sol’n in the volumetric flasks and I was 1/2 thru the analyses of 4 samples before I remembered it. That set me back a whole half hour that could have been profitably spent doing something else. I have not done anything like that for sometime now. Of course you make minor mistakes ever [sic] once in awhile like overrunning a titration or miscalculating something but that’s more or less normal and is easily corrected or repeated.

I may be conceited but I think there is more analytical work done on graveyards than on the other two shifts put together. I am certain I get 75% of the bromine values, about 1/3 of the gravities and R.I.s [refraction intercepts], all of the Westphal densities and naphthenic R.I’s and since Rod went back to Emeryville about 1/2 of the sulfurs. The only think I don’t do much of is run dispersions which I do only occasionally. Besides that I take care of any distillations going, Plant IV and Plant VII when they are operating which Plant IV is about 99% of the time and oh yes, make up the solutions. I haven’t made up the solutions for the sulfur analysis very much yet but the bromine value solutions always seem to run out on graveyards.

I suppose that this sounds like I have a very exalted opinion of myself which I don’t because most of the time I feel that I am not doing everything I should as I should but I am certain that the statements I have made could be vindicated by looking at the analytical record books. o well, I live in anticipation of the day I can loaf on my 40-acre farm.

My income tax is going to be $85 this year which is more than I thought it was going to be.

I am going to stop now

With love

C.P.

P.S. Please don’t think I’m sold on myself as may have sounded from this letter which really I’m not. I’m certain I would be better at loafing on a 40-acre farm than working as a chemist.