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the latter. At any rate, I conclude the best policy is to work hard and intelligently and the best Christmas present I can give my family and myself is to carry on from here on with all I've got. If I do I'll get there and no mistake about it. I've got all upset before when rumors and second hand stories and suppositions got me, only to find later how silly I was - I'm not going to do it again. My course is clear - I'm going to follow it. 

Erie, Pa.,
Thursday, Dec. 28, 1939.
Struggled up into the cold and the darkness at 5:5 AM and then #21 was 45 minutes late so I had to kill nearly a full hour at the station! Bill and  spent a couple of hours with Lt. Col. Blackmore and as usual the Col. "let his hair down" and gave us everything including a list of those who were sent invitations on the tank educational order, and loaned us a production analysis on the 3"AA gun mount, a weighty volume in which even the making of the last washer is analysed. We took the Col. to lunch and as he was in a rush to get back to the office, we bade him goodbye immediately afterward.

In the morning at the Col's office we had a brief talk with Waltermine, one of the subordinates, who used to be a naval inspector, and certainly can talk naval problem and design to the queen's taste. Gave us his views on the Graf Spee - too light, inadequately armored, not enough duplication of controls etc. Should like to talk more with him sometime. Gammeter, another young inspector, is nephew of the inventor of the multigraph, and his great unhappiness in life is the fact that he has never yet invented anything revolutionary. He has another investor uncle, which still further puts a complex on him.