June 13, 1942

June 13, 1942

Iowa City, Iowa

Dear father, mother, the instructoress at the Gowrie Lutheran vacation Bible school, and brothers,

This past week has been much cooler than the week which preceded it. This morning it is positively chilly. The wind is from the north. I deduce that it is a cold front moving in. During the week there has been a considerable amount of precipitation here and I suppose elsewhere, because the river has risen considerably. Last night I noticed that it had gone up about 3 feet from the previous night. As a result the water has been getting progressively softer and the water softener has not been giving the correct treatment to the water. By tonight tho I think that it should have just about reached the correct dosage.

At the power plant they have only two boilers on now but I wonder with this cold spell if they won’t put on another. Incidentally the university has bought about 5000 tons of washed Kentucky coal about 2" x 2"x 1" or so in size and is storing it. I guess they are afraid that they might run out if an acute railroad car shortage develops. This coal is really beautiful stuff. As I said it has been washed so that it is a glossy black with no dust along with it. Besides that it is a good quality coal so that there is not very much ash in it so that it is relatively free from seams etc. When you come down to see me graduate I can show it to you. It will be really quite a big pile of coal when the 5000 tons are all put together in one place.

Being as I did not know if either the Physical Chemistry or the Differential Equations class was scheduled to meet on Saturday, I went to find out before continuing my letter. Neither of them were. I notice also that the east smokestack at the power plant was producing smoke so that my surmise was correct. Both of the boilers that were on discharge their smoke into the west stack.

So far we have done two experiments in Physical Chemistry. Both of them were fairly easy. However in the Victor Meyer determination of vapor density I thought that I would never be able to get the apparatus leak-proof. I have one of them partly written up so I should be able to get both of them finished today. In class we have just sort of been going along not taking up very much in particular I think. A great deal of the material we have had so far I have already picked up in one place or another. The differential equations course is easier than I expected, at least so far. I am certain that I know almost as much as if I went to class.

I am very much undecided about what I should do about applying for the meteorological training. last week I was just about all ready to jump in but now I am very uncertain. The cause for the uncertainty is this. In the process of going around asked for letters of recommendation etc. etc. I was mostly advised that what I was doing was perhaps the best under the circumstances. However, when I asked Arnold for a letter of recommendation, he said that he would give me one of course but that he hoped it wouldn’t do any good, that is, that I wouldn’t get the appointment. He thinks that I should take my changes on the job with the petroleum company, even tho there is the danger of not being deferred.

As I respect his opinion more than the opinions of all of the rest of the teachers combined, I do not know what to do. I believe that as matters now stand I will let matters slide at least till I come home around the 4th of July. However, I will get everything together so that I can mail in my application whenever I want to. If I were really certain that I should try to get in the navy I should make the application immediately, but I am mot definitely not certain. Moreover I was talking to Prof. C. Woody Thompson, the university adviser on military affairs and he said that even if I were not deferred I probably would qualify for a number of different posts in the army that would not involve actual combat duty. It is very hard to decide what I should do, but where last week, things seemed to point toward the navy training they are now veering away from it. Maybe the purpose of it was for me to take differential equations this summer which I would not have had this question not come up.

We have a new German teacher now, being as the other one is gone on a vacation or something. His name is Schulz-Braden and he was born in Germany. He is a rather small fellow and looks rather odd, but I believe that he is really a very interesting individual to know. Unfortunately we have only 1 class a week now so we will not have very much contact with him which is really too bad.

I am running out of news so that I believe I will close.

With love

C.P.

P.S. I am enclosing a couple of clippings out of the same paper that give some evidence of the muddy thinking of our leaders in Washington.

P.S. Three more weeks till I come home for the 4th of July and 7 more weeks till I graduate. Can I wait? Yes, but hardly.

P.S. I will close with a very unpleasant thought. If I did decide to try to take my job in Calif., it would probably involve the little matter of leaving for Calif directly when school was over and not having any vacation at home. This is really too bad, but it seems the only safe procedure in case I do not decide on the navy training

P.S. The laundry bag came just now. Thank you for the cookies mama. I suppose the letter will come this afternoon.

P.S. As usual, my sincerest regards to everyone who will condescend to write to me.