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JULY, 1930 XXI 1926 Contnued would get in touch with me at 237 East Front Street, Berwick, Penna., and I will show them a good time, as I have found that there are such things around here. Also, if any of my other classmates in Course VI, located anywhere on the face of the globe will communicate with me at the above address, I will try to get some notes published in the future issues of The Review so that we will all know what the rest of us are doing. I know that I, for one, feel rather ashamed to pick up The Review each month and find it chock-full of news from men in other courses, and find not even mention of Course VI. Let's try to tell the world about ourselves, as perhaps in that way we may find classmates living in our own block that we had, may I say, "forgotten existed."— RONALD J. MARTIN, Secretary, 237 East Front Street, Berwick, Penna. Course VI-A This time we shall hear of the experiences of Lissner and how the cruel world treated this budding engineer. But let Liss speak for himself: "After leaving the Institute, in a rather lingering way due to spending some two weeks finishing my thesis, I endeavored to get a job with the General Electric. They couldn't see my value and refused to place me. Well, after I decided not to work for the G.E., I went home to nurse my injured feelings. After offering my services to the city, I was told that one summer of my experience some years previous was one summer too much. I didn't want to work for the city anyway. Hearing that there was an opening with the Montana Power Company, I secured the job through pulling the necessary wires. The position was assistant engineer or something like that, and the work consisted of sweeping floors and oiling the bearings on the hydroelectric generators and reading a few thermometers. The situation was ideal for consulting one's soul, if any. "The plant was Volta, the largest generating station of the company. It was nineteen miles from Great Falls, Mont., on a clay road which was impassable when wet. The only transportation was by individually owned cars. I could bum rides or walk. The dam had a fall of seventy-five feet plus a natural fall of an equal amount. Except during dry season, it was a very beautiful sight, a sheet of water like a huge green curtain, which impinged on the ragged boulders of the natural fall with great velocity, sending up showers of spray. A wonderful place to spend an afternoon. "The plant was manned by the operator, who threw the switches, and the assistant who had a regular round to see that none of the bearings got hot. There were three shifts and a few extra men. One third of the force would be sleeping, one third on duty, and the few remaining off duty would either go to town or stay in their rooms and read. A very social place and fine training for a hermit. Finding the snakes poor company, I pined away rapidly and after three days found myself ill. "Shortly after, I discovered that an affiliated company, or I should say, the owning company, the Anaconda Copper Mining Company, was putting up a big electrical process at the East Helena Smelter. "I went out there and informed them that I had just graduated from Technology and had had eighteen months at the G.E. working on transformers and what not. I was hired mainly to help install the power transformers. The boss and I soon discovered that an ability to make a C.C. transformer read 6.06 ampts. didn't help much in knowing how to set up a power transformer. Shortly my pay was considerably reduced, which was an uncalled-for indignity. "A few days later a high official of the company, whom I had told previously that I had given up the Montana Power job because of delicate health, came nosing around the smelter on an inspection trip. He met me with about fifty feet of heavy cable on my shoulder. He gave me a very dirty look which hurt my feelings to such an extent that I decided to come East again. "The Brooklyn Edison gave me a position in the distribution department. The work consisted of drawing...a half block or so of city streets to show where additional cable was to be installed. The planning was all done in the engineering department. We acted merely as engineering clerks. There were three classes of employees: eighth grade graduates, high school graduates, and college graduates in about equal numbers. We all worked together on identical jobs.... "Next the Company transferred me into still duller work, and the struggle to keep awake was beginning to tire me terribly. They st "I resigned just about two jumps before I was fired and abandoned electrical engineering. Taking a cut in salary I went to the Public Service Electric and Gas Company, taking a position as industrial fuel engineer. This is a swell job. Just at present I am at home listening to the radio and writing this letter. When my dinner has settled and the spirit moves me I shall go back to work. There are no time clocks and I only see the boss once a week. He sees me less than that if I see him first. "The work consists of going around glad handing all and sundry in an effort to get them to use gas. I ring the bell and when someone comes out I chant a little ditty to the effect that 'I ain't no gas man, I ain't no gas man's son, but I'll gas a little while until the gas man comes.' Sorry I can't send you the tune...." You see through the veil of his humor and remember experiences of your own in which the sad awakening to realities were thrust upon you. The rosy dream of the Technology grad being a young idol in the business world slowly melted away and we found ourselves down with the rest of the young fellows working and slaving at our tasks. Two more of the boys have removed the moss from over their heads and come forth into the light. Martin Grossman is working as an instrument man for the Pennsylvania Power and Light Company at Pine Grove, Penna. He claims to be single and is living at Conyngham, Penna. The other is Bob Sherwood, who is also single and is in Bremerton, Wash., being employed by the Puget Sound Power and Light Company as a service and overhead foreman. He won't need a stepladder in his work. His reply to my request for a letter is "give me time and I'll write you all about it." Just imagine wanting more time after nearly three years absence! We're still waiting, Bob. That ends the résumé of the whereabouts and whereabouts of most to the gang reported to date. The official list, according to The Review records, gives thirty-eight members of our Course. To date twenty-four have replied. Now let's see — the old slide rule says that is approximately 63.16%. Not so bad, boys — it passes, but let's try for a "C." Here is a letter from Phil Richardson which I received early last fall, in answer to one from me. "You doubtless know that after graduation, I went to Maine to each school at Colby. I had a perfectly sweet little time in the two years that I was up there. Everybody treated me wonderfully, and I left the place having made a great many friends. During the summers that I was up there I went to summer school and took a couple of courses that I needed to get me where I wanted to get. As a matter of fact, it was nothing more or less than a good vacation and I enjoyed it perfectly. While up there, I must have made a sort of impression, for it was through them that I had the chance to return to Technology and study for my doctorate. Anyway, here I am trying to squeeze by everything. "I am a teaching Fellow at the Boston University School of Medicine and in that way I am permitted to receive an education while teaching. That's a bit better than trying to get along on what I was doing. I only have to teach here during the afternoons of the second term and that leaves the rest of my time free in which to study and to get my research completed. This next year I expect to be at the Institute during the mornings and to be over here in the afternoons. Evenings, I have no idea where I'll be, but it will be doing something beneficial, you may be sure of that. I may study music to keep me busy and because I like it, too...." Well, Phil certainly has strayed from "juice," although I am sure he is far more happier in medicine. His letter is one of real interest but I must admit that I am not certain what difference it makes about there being any nitrogen in blood, anyway. — BENJAMIN P. RICHARDSON, Secretary, 29 South Second Avenue, Mount Vernon, N.Y. 1928 Ralph Jope has just shown me an invitation which says in part: "Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Edward MacBrayne request
