Viewing page 497 of 547

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

there and see what you can find out about the place. And specifically, find out how many stock locos. are available for new business and write a letter to the districts telling them." Then he went on telling me how the visibility on the 80 ton is no good and the GE733 they now find is no good for 36" gauge when it was supposed to be. When he asked if I knew these two things I said yes -- whereupon he gave me a rather contemptuous look, walked away and said, "And then you ask me the damn fool question you did a month ago!" At first I didn't know what question he referred to although I soon realized it must have been the one about his criticisms of Shap's regime. I followed him out into the hall and explained I had only learned of these things in the last couple of days. Whitey said then, "I tell you, they're driving me nuts!" I had a hard time kicking this incident out of my mind but finally I did, getting the major impetus from Whitey's now famed (in my memory) "worry-bug" speech.

The drawing for the selective draft was held today, and our big, gangling Polish mail man was drafted on the first number. Always taciturn and expressionless, this seemed at last to lift him out of himself and he came around grinning and telling everyone what had occurred. Somehow, I imagine this was the first thing that ever happened to him that seemed to give him a tint of glamour and fame and it changed him completely.

Erie, Pa.
Wednesday, Oct. 30, 1940.
This morning at our usual mail session, Whitey was kidding me about "talking in billions like Chester Lang"