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THE YEAR 1933

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   1933 was the year the depression hit bottom and began to ease at last. Roosevelt was inaugurated in early March and, to give the devil his due, things began to happen and fast. It was none too soon for us because I had gone down to 4-days a week about that time and we weren't taking in enough to cover expenses. Once more, in desperation I turned to the hope of making some extra money by writing fiction as well as non-fiction, and [[handwritten]] ^eventually [[/handwritten]] even took a sort of half-baked course in fiction writing, but I never made a nickel out of either--in fact, I was out the price of the course because I never sold anything. Fortunately, all of us seem to have been healthy. We dipped into a small pot somewhere to finance a two-week vacation at Chautauqua. I was away most of the time for six weeks starting in early September while working on a car-spotting study for the Company and I judge that got me back on a five-day week at least temporarily. Late in the fall, I learned that Doris had died and I was deeply saddened by it. In fact, as I look back upon 1933, I believe it was a very low year, maybe my lowest, all things considered.
   There is no doubt about 1933 being my lowest year at GE. It was a time of almost nothing to do of any importance most of the time. The car-spotting study was the only thing that prevented it being a total washout for me. I was very bitter over the whole situation. Since there is so little to report, the GE portion of this 1933 write-up will contain numerous anecdotes I collected as possible material for my writing. I did get closer to my boss, Maurice Guynes, and we had a couple of wing-dings together which I'll cover. But there was almost no productive work to accomplish and you felt largely like a charity case, and were to some extent. Moreover, you could reasonably expect your own head to be lopped off on the next cut.
   Material for this write-up has been pretty sparse. There are thirteen days of diary in January, one day in March, and one in October. Apparently I largely abandoned the diary in order to devote a lot of time to the writing fiasco. There are the few cards containing writing ideas I've mentioned. There are a few photographs which I've included. And there's my memory, which is largely blank for the period. And that's it. But I'll do the best I can with this and it will be interesting to see just what I can produce.

Forman H. Craton

Erie, Pa.,
November 25, 1973.