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An example of this had to do with Basil Cain, a Britisher and a mathematical wizard who became assistant engineer of our Locomotive Engineering group and whom I've mentioned before. Willie played some tennis with Betty Cain and told me that Betty referred to our big boss, H.L.Andrews, as "Hardage" and had had him to dinner recently. She also referred to Mr. Emmet as "Herman." Somehow I connected Betty's familiarity with these two top bosses at the GE with Basil's assured British way and it made me resent him very much. He just rubbed me the wrong way and I would argue with myself about how unjust it was to him as well as to me--just plain petty jealousy. But he did act so self-assured, so self-important. And yet, I'd tell myself, why shouldn't he? He was good and looked up to as a real comer. My problem, I knew, was how to act more self-assured myself in keeping with the job I had, which had great potential as time was to demonstrate. I knew I had too much of an inferiority complex and that it made no sense whatever but there it was and it was hard to deal with.

Another illustration of this occurred one day when Maurice Guynes took me over to Bldg.60 to ride a New Haven 0351. Later in the afternoon, some of the Westinghouse crowd who were in Erie on the Pennsylvania coordinated design, came over for a ride. When Brandenstein introduced the W boys to Guynes, Cain and Nelson, I hung back and wasn't included--my own fault 100%. And I swore afterward to overcome this diffidence and inferiority complex because I knew I had as much poise ,brains, background, presence, everything, as these others, and as good a job, and I should act the part too. My diary says, "It helps in getting ahead, to ACT AHEAD. No more diffidence--to hell with it!"

We had a nice visit from Nana and Gapa over Willie's birthday and Thanksgiving while Mother went to Syracuse to get her teeth fixed and see her old friends. On Thanksgiving, the Colonel and I took a walk from the lighthouse to the Bay over the narrow concrete walk that I still love to travel today. It was a cold, gray, windy day but exciting and invigorating. The wild geese flew overhead in perfect V-formation, their long necks stretched ahead, the streamlining of nature, headed south from the Canada lakes. Flocks of ducks were in the sky too. The biting air of late autumn, the dull colors all blending into a harmony of cold and quiet beauty, the gray water of the ponds and Bay, the wind in the brown leaves and bare trees--very thrilling, completely satisfactory. It made one appreciate life so much more.

That afternoon Babbie proceeded to fall over the foot of our bed onto the floor, apparently landing on her head with a terrible crack! But she was none the worse for it as far as we could tell. Whenever we were reminded of the fact that she might be hurt seriously at such a time, we could scarcely face the idea, she was so very precious to us.