Post #4: No time to sleep

Ithaca, New York
October 17, 1936

Dear Folks,

The very first thing that I want to do is to apologize most heartedly for neglecting to thank Aunt Dorothy for the excellent fudge which she sent. It arrived in fairly good condition and lasted 3 or 4 days. Somehow or other I neglected to mention it in my last letter but don’t blame me because I had a lot on my mind at the time.

I hope that everybody is enjoying excellent health and also the wonderful weather that we have been having up until today. It poured here all day without letting up once except for a little while before the football game. However that did not stop the bleachers from being packed with a huge throng of people who had come from miles to see it. Cornell won 20 to 7; as you probably know they played Syracuse and it was the first time that they have beaten them for four years. As I was studying I didn’t have time to go up and see any of it.

I will do as you say about my laundry. I wrote a letter to Aunt Tillie last Sunday and also received a nice letter from Catherine the same day that I received yours. I am glad that Papa has two men now and hope that he will take it easy while he has the chance. You surely have been having a lot of company lately. It was nice that Cousin Ethel could come up. I hope that you will excuse any misspelled words, but as I have to write in a hurry I am trying to write an interesting letter in an informal way.

I tried on Papa’s yellow shoes before I came out but they were too wide for me as I have a very narrow foot. Maybe later on I will need my work shoes and if I do I will send for them. I haven’t had any sign of a cold since I have been here but if I have escaped today I will count myself pretty lucky as I walked over and back from work three times today in the pouring rain. My rain coat surely does come in handy. I have worn my rubbers through my shoes and socks. I may have to get another pair.

I haven’t had a chance to go swimming yet but hope to pretty soon. I have been waiting table off and on all week and am getting the hang of it pretty well now although it was rather hard at first. I figured up this morning that I had earned 42 meals with a minimum value of $21 in the three weeks since I have been here—not bad is it?

I had a chance to work at three different fraternity houses tonight but had to turn two of them down. I have all of my weekends filled up to the middle of November and all of my Mon, Wed, and Friday mornings beside. However I am going to quit working at Phi Kappa Sigma the most of next week as I will have a steady job washing dishes for a few days down at Sigma Chi where I worked before subbing for one of the boys.

I got six telephone calls this morning and I guess Mr. Lender is going to move the phone up into my room if it keeps up. I have to get up at 5 a.m. when I am working in order to get my toilet done, study some, and get over at the Frat. house by 6:30. As a rule I don’t get to bed much before 10 or 11 p.m. so I have a hard job to keep awake through some of the lectures. We have one old fossil in orientation who is dryer than sawdust in July.

This morning I decided to snatch an hour’s sleep after I got back from work, and so I set the alarm and put it along side of my pillow. The next thing I new Mr. Lender was standing in the doorway trying to wake me up in order to tell me that I had three telephone calls and that he had rung for me every time but had supposed that I was up by that time of day. I explained to him that I wasn’t in the habit of sleeping until 10:30 and that if it had been very important the person would have given him the message. (I didn’t find out who it was but probably somebody calling me up to work).

I ran across part of Papa’s old diary in one of his botany notebooks the other night and it was very interesting indeed. It gave me the inspiration to want to keep one myself. We have a very interesting geology book which I paid $4 for and I know Papa would be very much interested in it. As this is only a one term subject, I think that I shall keep the book and give it to Papa for a birthday present. One of the editors is Richard F. Flint who is assistant professor of Geology at Yale University. It is a very new book and has a lot of new information in it. I have 75 pages to read for Tuesday and so far have read 25.

I have some long walks every Mon. Wed and Friday morning from the Frat. house way up to the Dairy building for Bacteriology. In the morning I have to wait table by myself for about 25 people so it keeps me stepping in order to get through in time to get up to my 9 o’clock class. We have a fellow taking graduate work from South Africa (German descent). Mr. Lender stays that it is the sixteenth that he has had from there as he has been taking in roomers and that they have all been very nice people. I went up to the Cross-country meet which Cornell had with Alfred yesterday afternoon and Cornell won 19 to 36 (team with lowest score wins). They had two fellows come in a dead heat a full quarter of a mile ahead of the rest in a 3 and ½ mile race.

This must be one of the most ideal places to study Geology that there is in the world. Nearly every thing that one studies about can be seen in actual existence within a few miles of Ithaca. Thursday for Geology lab we went over to Six Mile Creek on the bus and walked home. I think it was the longest six miles that I every walked because it took us from 1:30 to 4:30 to make it. We passed the Ithaca Reservoir and it was stone dry -– however, it was a marvelous sight to see all the sand and silt that had collected on the bottom.

They have the most peculiar heating system in this house of any place I have seen yet. The fellow next door to me has his room up to 70 and mine is 54 and we have both had our radiators turned on for the same length of time. Yesterday my room was warm and his was cold. I am writing this letter with my bathrobe on over my clothes and a blanket around my legs. If it keeps up I’m going to holler about it.

If you think that I valued my meals too high when I said 50¢, I figured this up for my breakfast at the Frat. house: 5 glasses of milk at 5¢ a glass --25¢; 2 dishes of cold cereal at 5¢ each -- 10¢; bacon, eggs, and toast --25¢; buns -- 5¢; orange or pineapple juice -- 5¢; total 70¢. If one was getting that meal anywhere in Ithaca he would pay $1 for it. However when you get up early and work you need a fair sized breakfast. I guess I must walk most of it off because at lunch time I am just as hungry as ever.

I don’t think so much of drill. We have a sour old captain who glares at you like a hundred watt bulb if you make a little mistake. We are learning how to operate some French 75 motorized cannon now and I never saw such a mixed up mess in all my life. Everybody looks at his neighbor and he doesn’t know any more than you do. However I suppose I will get used to it after a while. We have a colonel who fought in the Spanish-American and World War who lectures to us about the glory of going into trenches and getting your face shot off. One fellow went to sleep Wednesday during the lecture and fell out of his chair. The colonel made a goat out of him and I bet the poor kid must have felt like two cents.

This is all I have time for now. Write soon.

Lovingly, Hall