Editor’s note: On July 2, 1937, Amelia Earhart disappeared during her attempted transcontinental flight. The Empire of Japan invaded China in August, 1937. Buddy was dating Margaret Graves, the daughter of Dr. Graves, one of the Purdue faculty members.
11/5/37
Dear Marty,
I realize that it’s bad business answering a married woman’s letter a day after it is received, but if I don’t answer it now, I won’t be able to for over a week. I certainly do manage to get sowed up in a lot of things.
As concerns holding out on you, you should know better. I wasn’t holding out, I was trying to restrain myself so as not to make the kind of darned fool of myself that I did in 1936. It seems that in my old age I’m getting scared that I won’t be able to make the grade later, or something, and I’m subject to going ga-ga on the slightest provocation. Seriously though, I had dates with the gals for six months before I broke down and admitted how nuts I was. She isn’t the fragile type that I’ve usually gone with, but is quite robust and healthy. Strange as it may sound, I’ve had a couple of orthodox wrestling matches with her, and I have my hands full to down her. We fight like cats and dogs all day, but darkness has a quieting effect or something. This set-up is built on a more solid background than any I’ve ever had.
I passed on your little bits of advice, and she says to thank you for them. Her last name is Graves. She likes my hair-cut, but also would like to see what it looks like in a little more quantity. It is yet short enough that if it were five times as long, it wouldn’t be able to hang in my eyes. Boy, this state has me laughing. Up home, I was just passably good looking or a little less. But down here I’ve been told I was good-looking so frequently that I’m almost to the point of believing it. Well, it takes more than a dozen none-too-smart local gals to convince me of that. After all, I do look at myself in the mirror when I shave, and you can’t convince me I’m anything but homely. Maybe it’s my money they’re after!
That’s a dirty shame about your glasses. I’ve been having woe also. I have broken mine twice since September. My eyes are apparently getting worse, because I honestly can’t distinguish things without them when I’m tired.
Glad to hear that you two are getting about a bit. Your house inspection reminds me that I haven’t anything to drink since August. I’ve been too damned busy to miss it. This time last year, I was a first class drunkard. I got plotched about every Saturday night. But I’m the only fellow in the gang who didn’t flunk out of school! Oh, well I guess they couldn’t take it.
The speedwriting is fine stuff from all reports I’ve heard. But I doubt if they would be very useful in college. Most of the notes I take build up in outline form. The instructor says about 5 or 10 sentences about a given topic, and I condense this into one sentence. The difference between good college note-taking, and stenographic note taking is that the latter has to be verbatim, and the former has to be in outline form, and the note-taker must have the ability to analyze the content of a paragraph on first hearing and not after cogitating on the matter. Up to date, I have 22 pages of history notes, about 30 pages of mimeographed sheets which the instructor passed out, and we have covered about 300 pages of text material. We had a test yesterday and I wrote 9 pages of long-hand in an hour’s time. I wrote seven pages on the first one, and didn’t have a single mistake in either history or grammar.
Heard Phil Thomas of Westinghouse give a demonstration lecture a few nights ago. I suppose I should call him Doctor Thomas, because he has his Ph.D., but he is a close friend of my cousin (for whom I used to work) and I’ve heard of him as Phil ever since I was 8 years old. I went up and talked to the boy for a few minutes afterward. He showed a cannon ball (rubber) in flight so that it looked like it was standing still instead of traveling at 250 mph. Also showed a number of other interesting and spectacular exhibits like making a rotating motor appear to stand still, taking all of the particles out of smoke so that it came out clear like air, lifting a 20 lb. iron bar with a magnet about the size of your hand, and a burglar alarm which operated from invisible light.
Well, Marty, I have to leave for class in an hour, and I have much to be studied in the interim. No matter how much I study, I seem to get the same grades and stay about the same amount behind all of the time. Incidentally, I flunked a mechanics test yesterday. They asked me to calculate how had I’d have to push on the brakes of a car to stop it under a certain condition. How the heck should I know, I don’t have a car!
Take it easy, kid. It’s snowing here. Great big flakes which are half rain and melt when they hit.
73* Cy
*radiotelegraph abbreviation for “best regards”
A thanksgiving memory from “My Life. . . My Way”, Charles F. Sharrard, Jr., Book One, p. 73:
The Thanksgiving meal far and away surpassed the normal fare for a Depression family. For, if corners were cut on daily meals, nothing was spared on Thanksgiving Day!
Our dinner, according to family tradition, was served between 1:30 and 2 p.m., just far enough off the noontime routine to make everyone ravenous. All family members dressed in their finest and, after the usual blessing was said, Grandfather rose at the head of the table to struggle bravely with the carving of the turkey, while the rest of us drooled expectantly. These were times when Buddy and I went into our pun routine. I’d say, “Please pass the butter, Buddy,” and he’d reply, “Eat your bread. It tastes butter without it!”
Then I’d say, “That’s corny.”
To which he’d answer, “Goes against your grain, huh?”
And on and on. . . even Grandfather would be chuckling after a while.