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40

   As the market continued to fall and business was literally slowing to a virtual halt, the situation at the office was rapidly deteriorating into a nightmare. I'd reached the point where I had almost nothing that [[underline]] had [[/underline]] to be done--that is, just about everything I had was the "rainy day" type of job. I'd get so disgusted sometimes that I felt it would actually be a pleasure to get fired. I knew this was nutty but I felt that way at times. I'd try to cheer myself by remembering that in the past, such periods had often been followed by periods of intense activity and maybe the New York Central was really on the verge of electrifying. Oh, yeah? In mid-August I got a small break in the monotony when I drove to Cleveland to discuss with Gerry Hoddy, who'd transferred to the Cleveland Office, a proposed AIEE paper on the Cleveland Union Terminal locomotives. My recollection is that this paper was finally produced but by me and Pinkerton, who was Electrical Engineer of CUT, and I did most of the work. At any rate, while over there, Hoddy took me out to the Corrigan-McKinney Steel plant where we had a 60-ton diesel-electric working on consignment. Ten out of fourteen open-hearth furnaces were shut down, giving a powerful picture of the current plight of the steel industry. But I got quite a thrill out of going through the place. It was like a slumbering giant, just showing signs of life and that was all. Everything was so massive, so enormously impressive--to draw a picture of it would be to block out great masses of grays and browns and blacks, huge arcs and spirals, spots glowing intensely among them all, dust shafts of sunlight rifling through the gloomy caverns filled with massive equipment. I'd driven over alone and left for home about 8 p.m. Returning, I drove 35-40 mph all the way and reflected on the remote but very intriguing possibility of writing a novel. A theme which had long appealed to me concerned two brothers and their differing beliefs in immortality and God. I decided to plan it carefully sometime to see just how it would look. The rest of that business week was devoted mostly to whipping the AIEE paper along, which I found rather tedious work requiring frequent "reconditioning periods." For, unless I was busy with important work, I found the summer months at the office hard to take. The call of the open was too strong in me. If I was really busy, I was okay, but otherwise it was a hard fight to avoid boredom.
   In late-August, I had another assignment which relieved the boredom temporarily and for which I was profoundly grateful although it was a rough deal while it lasted. Also it illustrated how grown men can act as irresponsible and silly as little boys sometimes. When I had entered the "commercial department" as TED was commonly referred to, back in 1930, there already was in existence an institution which I believe Maurice and maybe Bill Hamilton dreamed up, probably when over-stimulated by the grape. It was called the Lake Erie Transportation Club. Its purpose was to provide the excuse for bringing cus-