May 28, 1942

May 28, 1942

Iowa City, Iowa

Dear father, mother, Snooty-Poot, brothers and anyone else who may read this letter,

I cannot figure out exactly what went wrong with my last letter but I suppose (after long cogitation) that something went wrong with it. I got to thinking after I found out that it had not reached you and began to wonder if I had put a stamp on it. But I am certain that I did for I went downtown to mail it because I didn’t have any stamps in my room. I may have forgotten to buy a stamp to put on it after I got downtown but I think that that is a rather poor explanation. I mailed in in a sort of sub-post office in a drugstore, which always looks as if the mail were regarded purely in a secondary light and it may have got lost there. At any rate, it wasn’t a very good letter anyway since I did not feel like writing a letter then so maybe it is just as good that you did not get it. I’ll try to remember everything of important which I put into it and include it in this letter, so that if the other one does not turn up, you will still know about everything of vital importance which has been going on in Iowa City.

Today is a very gooey, sticky day. I can just imagine days like this all summer and I am not exactly looking forward to it. No doubt it will seem nicer when I am looking back at it. Two of my courses finish this week, strategic minerals & elementary meteorology. I am just about certain that I will get an A in strategic minerals because my average in the daily tests which really determine your grade is definitely above the bottom limit specified for an A. I don’t know about elementary meteorology. I did all right in the first test, A, but I do not know how I came out in the second. However, I cannot think of anything which I did wrong. Saturday morning we are going to have a 2-hour test in this subject for which I must do a little studying.

By the way, I have been looking around for loopholes that I can get thru if the draft board doesn’t think a chemical engineer is necessary to national defense. Of course I suppose there are some requirement to be met which I do not know of yet but I believe I am qualified. The situation is this. If you are a graduate of an engineering college, over 20, plus some additional minor qualifications that I can meet, you can enlist in the navy, receive a commission as an ensign, go to school for 9 months at government expense at any one of about 5 schools in the U.S. to become a meteorologist. During this time you will be on a result salary of about $180 a month. At the end of the time you will act either as a meteorologist in some connection with the navy or otherwise teach naval cadets what meteorology they need to know.

Frankly this sounds very good to me. If the war continues for some length of time, it would indeed be the safest thing to do. Moreover I should be able to save enough so that at the end of the war I could start farming. Or, since the science of meteorology has recently undergone radical changes in practice & unusual advances in theory, well trained individuals in this field are somewhat scarce. The only thin that is wrong about it is that to be worthwhile, the war would have to last a reasonable length of time so that either of the two above-mentioned objectives could be attained. I am sort of up a stump. If I do it, I will be safe from the army but I probably will never be a chemical engineer and moreover if the war stops soon, I will be only worse off for my decision. If I don’t, I might conceivably get in the army which would be sort of messy but if I didn’t, my future should just about be settle.

Meteorology is interesting stuff — just as good as chemistry could ever be. I suppose it is sort of wrong to look at the whole situation in such a selfish way but I just cannot help it. I have written to the proper authorities to find out some more about this. Maybe something will turn up to turn me either to it or against it as has always seemed to do in the past. I hope I get the same guidance this time as previously. By the way, I would of course like to have your opinions on the subject.

Last Tuesday night I went to see “As You Like It” — a play production of the University theater here. According to the regulations, you paid to see it in your tuition so of course I thought that I might as well take advantage of it. It is, as you know, written by William Shakespeare. For the first 3 or 4 minutes it was sort of hard to understand what was going on but after a while you could understand everything that was said very well. I think that when I have time I am going to have to read all of Shakespeare’s plays, especially if they are as interesting when read as when they are presented. For it was very interesting I thought. I never noticed it before when I read Hamlet or Macbeth or anything but Shakespeare always gathers up all his characters in the end and gives them a very definite fate or future either for better or worse. When the play is over there are not any loose ends that didn’t come out right. I rather think that he should have made a very excellent detective-story writer if he had lived in this day and age. I won’t attempt to tell about the story but I will say that it was very funny in parts and I enjoyed seeing it very much.

Because I went to the play I got only 6 hours of sleep Tuesday night (the play wasn’t over till 11:00 and I didn’t get to bed before 11:30) and last night I got only 6½ for some reason or other. I guess I just didn’t get finished with what I needed to do till late, so today I have been sort of droopy all day. After German class is over tonite I think I will go right to bed and see if I can’t catch up a little bit. The German class is held in the evenings because that is the only time when some people could come to class. Next week of course, things should be easy so that maybe I can get my water analyses in Industrial Chem finished and the fuel or gas analyses started. That is sort of a messy course I think. The book isn’t any too good and some of the tests don’t have too good a theoretical basis I don’t think.

In case it was in my last letter and not before, Wilmington Calif. is a suburb of Los Angeles. Of course that is another argument in favor of the Chem Eng’ng since there is a university there and I can continue my studies.

I am going to maybe buy some books which I don;t have to have but which I would like to have — maybe a meteorology book and some others so that I might write some checks soon. I suppose I could use my money that I have or my check which is coming next Sat but it is easier to use that to pay the rent with and eat on.

I have found out that I got an A in economy after all so I got B only in speech & organic chemistry.

With love

C.P.

Thank you, mother, father and Vivian for the letters I received from you in the past two weeks.

[marginalia] I mailed my laundry home on Wednesday so you should get it by Friday at least.

I think mama, that you have been forgetting to put my towels in my laundry. I do not know where all of them have gone otherwise.