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Portland, Me.
Sunday, Jan.8, 1939
Arose at 9:40AM finished breakfast at 11 AM read the N.Y Times and "journaled" until about 1 PM and then with a milk shake in me, took the 1:15PM train for the north. As we proceeded the country became wilder and wilder, flat and covered by swamps and pine woods, and scrub growth.  And at last as we got up around Kennebunk, I saw the sea stretching off there beyond the winter fields. And strangely, today it was warm and sunny and almost all the snow was gone from this customary sanctuary of winter winds and snowy blankets and below zero weather.  Old Orchard Beach looked like a deserted place, hotels and shops, everything boarded up; but I'll bet in the summer, it's a beehive.  And finally we got to Portland.
I had been told to stay at the Hotel Layfayette because the Eastland, best in town, makes its own power, and the Central Maine Power Company, a good G.E. customer resents GE people staying there.  But when I got one look at the Lafayette and then one at the Eastland, I decided to be disloyal to C.M.P. and registered as plain "F.H. Craton, 710 Delaware Ave, Erie, Pa."  I've spent too many nights on sleepers and in ancient hostelries this week, to stay at another when I don't have to.  And I find the Eastland a charming place and huge.  The clerk asked

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