April 28, 1946

April 28, 1946

664 W 13th St

San Pedro, Calif

Dear Father, Mother, “Hotspot” (our third baseman) and the rest of the folks at home,

I was very sorry to hear in your last letter that Marold had not been feeling well, mother, and I trust that by now he is feeling better. It would really be the cake if he did get the measles (and had one big measle in the middle of his back). Probably it was as you suggest only an attack of the flu, aggravated by an afternoon of picking up corn. From what I can remember of picking up corn it is second only to potato picking as a 1st class aggravator.

It is quiet and peaceful tonite but it has been rather cool all day. Yesterday it was much warmer and sunnier. Today the sun has been sort of half hidden by clouds all day. I took a walk in the afternoon and wishing I had worn more than the jacket I took along. It was nice walking along tho. I wandered out to the bluff overlooking the harbor at about 19th St and then walked down to the U where they were having a Vesper Service at 4:00 p.m. The Norwegian Luth. Church Chair gave a program. It was fairly good I thought. Afterward I stopped downtown for a hamburger and a cup of coffee before hastening home to hear Fred Allen, only to find out that he is off the air for the season or something because I couldn’t find him anyplace on the radio. So I sat down to write this letter home (after reading awhile).

As usual I didn’t get very much done yesterday. I got up about the same time as usual went downtown for breakfast and accomplished the errands I had to do, such as taking my dirty clothes to the laundry and going to the bank. In the afternoon I went to a show but it was so stinky that I left after an hour or so and went to the library and browsed around. After supper I came home and got to talking to a fellow who is also a roomer here and has a room next to mine. He is in the navy, but he is improving on his odd moments by enrolling for several music courses at the L.A. Conservatory of Music [part of CalArts since 1961]. He was quite an interesting fellow. Afterward I took a shower and went to bed.

My work is coming along pretty good. Friday night I felt rather happy. One of the catalysts I had made was turning out (at least on the basis of preliminary results) better than any other that had been made & tried on the current problem. What was best tho was that the opinion of the two groups who came down from Emeryville was the same as that I had in making the catalyst. This week should be a fairly busy one since the mechanical department should have the new catalyst manufacturing setup ready to Dominguez and the first preparations up there will get under way.

I wrote to Verner Sat. I got a letter form him, and I felt really ashamed at not having written to him sooner since he has sent a lot of letters to me that I haven’t got around to answering. He isn’t like Vivian. When you don’t write to her, she lets you know about it. It is almost fun to hold off writing to her so she will get her dander up and write a “huffy” letter telling you off.

I guess I’ll go down to church tonite. I don’t know why I go but it certainly isn’t to hear him talk. But then it is easy enough to think about something else and not listen to him. Sometimes I wonder how much of the time I have spent supposedly listening to sermons has been spent thinking entirely different from the subject under discussion. Probably the best excuse for a sermon is that it forcibly provides you with a period of time when you can’t do very much else than indulge in contemplation, as a means of self-defense.

With love

C.P.