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This evening Fred Brelob, Harold Ogden and I took Garnand, Jordan, Merriman and Radley to dinner. Garnand and Jordan are the inspectors from the Naval Gun Factory on the 5"/38 job, Merriman is the local Navy inspector, and Radley is the inspector from Watervliet Arsenal on the 75 mm pack howitzers. I thought we ought to have a little party to get better acquainted and it worked well. We had drinks again in the Commodore Perry Room which the Navy men thought very appropriate. Garnand is a husky, jolly ex-machinist 36 years old from Christiansburg, Va. and Jordan a curly haired chap perhaps 33, pleasant, also southern, a member of the flying reserve in the national guard. They are both civilians and civil service men, and I judge very high grade inspectors or they wouldn't be on this fussy job. Garnand says this job is so fussy and so secret he is surprised they let it out at all and we should feel flattered. Merriman is an old, white haired, kindly faced man who looks like and old salt although he has been in Erie for 20 years as resident inspector for the Navy. He is a prince of an old chap and quite deaf. Radley is a thin [[strikethrough]]l  [[/strikethrough]], hooknosed man around 60 who resembles Charlie Ives. And the coincidence about him is that he was a great friend of Bill Spade whom I knew so well in Sch'dy in 1924-25. He praised Bill, said he had been back at the Arsenal for several years, and then sadly, that he died four months ago. Bill was one of the best friends I had in Sch'dy and I was saddened to hear about his death. We spent the evening until 10:30 talking, mostly about ordnance work and it was fascinating. It was a wholesome evening - not one dirty story even

Transcription Notes:
mandc: I wish now I had started keeping a log of names Craton tosses out as his handwriting is not always clear, and my memory fails me given the huge number of family, class mates, friends, officials, co-workers, former colleagues, all of their nick-names, etc. Does SI have a list?