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JULY, 1930                          XXIII
1928 Continued
I don't know why they missed Massachusetts. Roger has bought himself a flivver (a new one; he must be prosperous), and spends his time up north with the Eskimos. While the Mystic Lakes were frozen over, Roger and I spent one freezingly pleasant afternoon ice boating, and if you have never been ice boating, come north and try it. Incidentally Roger writes me that in February he was in St. Johnsbury, Vt., where it 18° blow, and the following day in Richford, Vt. (among the green hills of Vermont), it was 24° below zero. However, more luck to Roger. Let us hope it gets warm in the far north.

From the write-up in The Review last month, I judge that most of the men are taking unto themselves a frau. I had an announcement a while ago that Walter Mattlage and Miss Mary Louise Lehmann were married on March 4, and will live at 143 Montgomery Street, Newburgh, N. Y. I wonder if some of these newlyweds would care to drop me a line and tell me how they do it. --Charlie Hall wrote me from 3 Square de l'Avenue du Bois, Paris, France, the following: "It seems to me that I saw a Paris M. I. T. Club mentioned in an old number of The Review. As yet I have been unable to locate it. There are plenty of Cornell, Amherst, Yale, and so on, men here. I have been particularly struck by the cheapness of man power all over France and Germany. The result is that equipment for material handling and production in general is not what it should be. The Citroen Plant in this city is, however, as up-to-date as any of our automobile factories. Cars in general, with the exception of the heaviest, are all low horsepower and small displacement, due chiefly to the rating tax and the high cost of gasoline. Almost any kind of American car is considered smart. The Chrysler is the best seller in the group; the Ford the poorest. The Ruhr district of Germany is the heart of European industry despite tariff barriers. There are countless numbers of women workers. The Germans are no longer the old thrifty sort, but out for fine clothes and a good time."

The good professors of letter writing say that we should always end a communication with a smile. I received a letter from Johnny Praetz, who has been in the research department of the Brown Paper Company since leaving school. Like all his letters Johnny covers a lot of ground, so rather than tell you in my own words, I will pass the note along to you. "I am still concentrating on the design of special process machinery for rayon silk manufacture trying to keep up with the chemists up here. Doing everything from plant layout, heating systems, hydraulics, automatic machinery, building construction, and guessing. It's a great guessing contest, this engineering game, especially pioneering in special machinery. Remember the pioneering at good old Technology? Sometimes the guesses aren't so hot, but I am improving all the time. By 2,000 A.D., I ought to be pretty good. You don't know how lucky you are to be down there in civilization. This is the horrors up here, and I am working hard to get located down there somewhere." Johnny was in Akron, Ohio, during last spring, and while there met Twist Malmquist and old Nick, the father of the front wheel drive board annd motor wheel kitty cars, which most of you will remember from the old Technology circus. (Do you remember the old chariot race dressed in tights and pulled around in a wash tub?) Incidentally, Johnny Praetz has left the Brown Paper Compant in Berlin, N. H., to take up a position teaching steam theory and steam power plant practice at Wentworth Institute. You know, I have wondered what the relation was between Johnny's change in work, and the fact that there is living in Jamaica Plain a certain... Johnny works eighteen hours a week on his new job He seems to like it very much. -- I wonder what has happened to old Al Shedd. The last time we heard he was in the south draining the blood from his feet while scratching the table tops.

This is all the news I have this month, so good-by until the next issue. -- JOSEPH A. PARKS, JR., Secretary, E. L. Patch Company, 38 Montvale Avenue, Stoneham, Mass.

COURSE XIV
We are pleased to acknowledge the receipt of a letter from Harold Bialkowsky. Harold is taking graduate work in paper chemistry at Lawrence College, Wis. He says, "I obtained a fellowship at the newly opened Institute of Paper Chemistry (Appleton, Wis.) and I am planning on working for a Ph.D. This institute is a purely graduate school, and the number of students has been limited to six. The courses are under the direction of a world-famous authority on pulp and paper. The school is supported by the paper industry, and the proposition looks pretty good to me." -- CHARLES E. BERRY, Secretary, 409 West 22d Street, Wilmington, Del.

1929
Once again The Review goes to press and calls for the news of those boys who so reluctantly left Cambridge last June. As usual the news is rather scarce, hence there is not much to report.

Ed Michelman VI reports that he is now in the transmitter development division of the Radio Corporation of America Communications, Inc., at Rocky Point, Long Island. -- Joel Whitney II writes that he is still enjoying that southern hospitality and climate like nobody's business. He has finished one period of his training and has a job as foreman in the plant on second shift. Evidently he likes work with du Pont and they like him, so what can prevent him from enjoying life?

Elmer Skonberg and Len Peskin have done a very excellent job for their courses this month. How about a few more of the Course Secretaries becoming active and imparting the long awaited news to us? -- EARL W. GLEN, General Secretary, 339 Hillwood Drive, Akron, Ohio.

COURSE XV
Having read The Review today, I am feeling Technology minded and so a letter to The Review wil finish the day in the same spirit. This same "mindedness" was responsible for another inspiration this evening. It has to do with friends Amos 'n' Andy. You know, those boys are lacking in something. Nothing -- the Fresh Air Taxicab Company, the bond market, the Queen, speech-making, or anything else goes well for them. Tonight it occurred to me that the lacking something is Course XV. Just think what Economics 21 to 72 inclusive would do for the Fresh Air Taxicab Company and what a big help Sneaky Joe's M-22 would be to Amos, vastly improving his short-changing technique! Kingfish just wouldn't know nothing about bonds were Amos to expose himself to Armstrong's Finance and Corruption, and as for speech making, why you, too, Amos, can become a popular after dinner speaker simply by cutting Bill Green's course in Public Speaking. A little extra-curriculum work, say with the Technology Christian Association, or assisting Professor Doten, might give Andy some ideas regarding the Queenly struggle, and so on. There's an idea for someone with a bit of "remagination."

Now let's look at the contributions that have come in since last time. Ray Bray finally spared us a few minutes from the fast pace on the coast. He writes in part as follows: "I was sent to to Oleum Refinery of the Union Oil Company the middle of October and they haven't fired me yet. I've been digging in here and there all over the place to find out what's going on, and by now an oil refinery is not quite as unfamiliar as it was last July. The University of California is about three blocks from where I live, so I have seen some football games and use their tennis court quite a bit. I sure miss the old snow and ice, though, although they have winter sports here in the mountains. The weather here (Berkeley) is not so consistently sunny as it is down south, but we have no cause for complaint."

Here it comes at last -- Charlie Nord writing from the big city. Charlie, you know, is with the New York Telephone Company struggling with the new rates that have just gone into effect. "There's not much gossip about myself. The rate section has been putting in plenty of night work since the announcement of the new rates. It's great work --  this public utilities business. I've heard quite frequently from McClintock. He is making Buicks as they have never been made before and I am sure that when better cars are made Mac will see to it that they are Buicks." I don't want to discourage Mac, but a fellow townsman remarked this week that when better Buicks are made they will look like Packards.

And now to give you first-hand information about Mac and the Buick Corporation, let me dash off a portion of a month-old letter from Mac himself. Mac is located in the experimental department of the Buick Motor Car Company at