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[[underlined]] To Willie, December 2, 1924: [[/underlined]] I went through West Point several years ago when a friend from Washington (Frederick Lee) was there. I was so wild about it then that I was all for trying to get in there when I finished "high." But my enthusiasm died away in the course of a few weeks, and here I am, a mechanic, instead of a general. But it's not so bad being a mechanic afterall. Every engineer should go through what we are going through before being allowed to go into an engineering office. They pull more bonehead mistakes, and design more things that can't be machined, or can't be assembled, merely because they don't know enough about machine tools or assembly work. It is a fact that in the turbine department, they design some apparatus and then go to an expert mechanic to find out if it is practicable, or possible to make. He may tell them in the end how it should be made. Of course, I don't mean to run down the engineering staff, because they aren't all like that, but there are some who actually have to do that.

[[underlined]] To Willie, December 9, 1924: [[/underlined]] They (chemical terms) have anything in my line stopped three ways for Sunday. It's a wonder someone doesn't incorporate "tetramethylentenediol" (that's wrong, I guess) into a cross word puzzle. Yes, the caze has hit both Syracuse and Schenectady. Sunday afternoon when I was at home, the phone range and it was my cousin, who wanted to know what they call the stationary part of electrical machinery. She was stuck on a crossword puzzle, knew I was in town, so called up, thinking that as I work for General Electric Co. I should know about electrical apparatus. I said, "Stator, Gertrude?" and she said, "Hooray, that's it!" And so another crossword puzzle met its fate. This morning in the hospital, the nurses were working crossword puzzles. The only reason I haven't fallen yet is that I haven't time, I guess. Del Quammen sits inside a turbine shell as it revolves on his boring mill, and works crossword puzzles between cuts. Oh, it is terrible! ...... My uncle in Virginia used to say that "this country is bein' taken by the Episcopalians and dog fennel." ...... I was in the "5 and 10 cent store" to buy some screws last night, when I heard a small voice beside me inquiring about fixed condensers, inductive couplings, etc. He was a little newsboy, I guess, and couldn't have been more than eight or nine years old. ...... WGY broadcast the Unitarian services last Sunday and, of course, at once received many condemning letters from Fundamentalists about it. So the WGY director decided that he couldn't broadcast any more Unitarian services. But two or three GE vice-presidents immediately swooped down on him and he got royally squelched for it. As a result, Mr. Caldecott will get his turn with the others. But can you beat people being so darn narrow as to write letters of protest to a station because they broadcast a Unitarian service? It makes me mad clean through. It just shows the Fundamentalists aren't sure of their position, or they wouldn't care. They're afraid to let themselves think. ...... I just moved to the turbine

Transcription Notes:
"caze" in the 2nd paragraph should obviously be "craze" referring to crossword puzzles, but I left it as written.--thomasc