May 6, 1943

May 6, 1943

425 S. Cabrillo

San Pedro, Calif.

Dear father, mother and the folks at home,

It is rather early as I am writing this letter. The sunrise was nice and bright this morning and I guess that that may have had something to do with it — that is with my getting up early on my day off. Usually I like to loaf in bed if I feel that I do not really have to get up. Since it is sunshiny and bright so early in the day it probably will be quite warm this afternoon unless it clouds up around noon. This is a new phase of Calif weather that has occurred a number of times recently.

Your box of cookies arrived, safe and very sound, mama. I don’t think that a single cookie was damaged in the least. And are the scrumptious! Thank you so much for them. One night recently I dreamt that you were making grün (you know what I mean). I guess it was in anticipation of about 3 or 4 months from now. [This recipe for something called “gruetze” is very similar to the recipe for “gryn” that my mom used to make for my dad, from a recipe given her by my dad’s sister-in-law.  —LRS]

My work continues about as usual. However, some new stuff has been going on. 1000 lbs of catalytic-cracking catalyst are being made here. This is sort of interest[ing] since it involves things heretofore not done around here and also a number of new analyses that are fun to do. The work is being done mostly by the operator but the lab does the more involved analyses. As a result, Plant IX is down since it would be difficult to keep both Plants I and IX running and be making the catalyst at the same time.

Today is my day off and I go back to work tomorrow afternoon as operator. The catalyst has been about ½ made now so that by the time after this when I am again operator it should be completed. It really is more fun I think to work in the laboratory that as an operator. Lately some new things have some up in the laboratory and the work there is much less routine than in Plants I and IX. I think that eventually I would rather work in the lab. Zene said that it probably could be arranged sometime in the future.

Last Sunday I went with Pastor & Mrs. Wellington to Los Angeles to a meeting of the Southern District Luther League. We stayed for both the afternoon and evening services. The speaker was Wilton Bergstrand, executive director of the Augustana Synod Luther League and he certainly was a dynamic fellow. I guess he is a very suitable individual for such a position.

I also met some interesting people while I was there. Usually, as you probably realize, I don’t get around to talking to people I don’t know too readily but after lunch after the afternoon session I saw that if I didn’t find somebody to talk to, time would hang rather dull on my hands for awhile. So I started talking to a couple of fellows after some rather diffident hellos. After we got to talking it went fairly easily tho. One of them turned out to be a chemical engineer, who has been working for Shell Chemical Co since last May. The other was a civil engineer working for the U.S. engineer’s office in Los Angeles. It was quite interesting speaking to them.

Afterwards, thru them, I was introduced to several other people, including a geology graduate student at Cal. Tech., a senior in chemistry at the University of Southern Calif and to a number of other people who do I know not exactly what. One of them however was a Liljegren of some sort tho who hails from Arkansas and was a relative of Eleanor Renquist’s. There seemed, all in all, to be quite a number of coincidences coming up during the afternoon. I had a very enjoyable time thru out.

However by the time we got home (10 o’clock) I was pooked out. I had worked graveyards Sunday morning so that by then (at 10 o’clock Sunday night) I had had no sleep for 24 hours and as a result was getting rather sleepy. I slept like the proverbial log that night, altho even when I am not tired I usually do not have too much trouble sleeping.

I am sorry to hear that father has not been getting along so well according to Dr. Borgen. It is a good idea to start taking it easy. Working only in the afternoons should be a good idea I think. Twenty pound of liver seems all right (but an awful lot) and I should think it would perk up the red blood corpuscles considerably.

I received a letter from Vincent which I mean to answer today, but after I have had some breakfast, since when I finish this letter I am going down town and feed my mouth. I guess I will go to the bank too. I haven’t got around to cashing my last paycheck yet. When you are working days it is sometimes rather difficult to do.

I am thinking of trying to buy some sort of a car. I get tired of walking to the P.E. station and I also think I could get a better place to stay farther from the waterfront, and a car would remedy both of these situations. If I feel like it I’ll take a walk down Pacific to the car lots today. If the Ruml tax plan or some pay-as-you-go proposal is enacted I can take the money now being set aside for income tax next year for this purpose. Of course I still must make certain I have plenty to come home on but $100 should be enough for that.

Yesterday morning the P.E. car rain into a car while crossing Anaheim Boulevard. It ripped his back fender off and smashed the glass in his back windows. The jolt was not noticeable at all in the car but I’ll bet he felt it. it was a very silly thing for him to do. There were two trains at the crossing (it is double tracked) one north bound & one south bound. If the south bound had started up as it normally would have in a couple of seconds he would have been hit on both sides and something serious could have occurred.

I guess I will stop now. I shall include Vincent’s letter altho it may contain news you have already heard about.

With love

C.P.