- Hello Marian and Paul. First I apologize for sending another tape. But I would never get this to you if I wrote it longhand. Even if I did some abbreviating I probably wouldn't get it done. So Paul can find the tape record--or tape cassette again and I'll tell you about my trip to Berlin. First I am driving from Buffalo to our plant which is up near Tawas, Michigan which is about sixty miles north of Saginaw Bay City area. And tonight I am going to attend a venison dinner at our hunting lodge up there with the people from that plant. This is an annual affair. I've been three or four times. I enjoy it a lot, but it's too far to go but I don't have much excuse because they, or rather I don't have any way of getting out of it because they changed the date to accommodate me. And um, next time I'll be a little smarter in my reasons for not going. Anyhow, I went to Berlin. Left, I... switched my car with the plant manager's car. The plant manager's at Clarence Center plant where my office is. He has a company station wagon so this made it a little easier for me. And I drove to Grand Rapids and was there a day and then I went on to Berlin. Everything is fine there. I picked up all the things that I was supposed to pick up. And... this... consisted of the setee which I have to repair. And another chair that was straight-backed. I guess it's an antique. It also was in poor condition. But I can fix that too. Then I got the china and though the Wedgewood was quite nicked. Nevertheless, we came out with something like, ten good plates and cups and saucers. All the soup dishes were in good shape. And... some of the other plates. In other words I'd say we got a good, enough for a setting for eight easily and a few dishes over. Unfortunately the platters were not only chipped but were cracked so, we can't use them. I think some day Flo may try to pick up a Wedgewood platter that goes with this set because it is a nice set. Anyway, we're appreciative of it and we also picked up the silver pol-- silver service which I told Flo I absolutely would not polish so she polished it. I am not lazy, but I don't go for things like that. Things that don't go in dishwashers I don't really care much about. I will say this, it is very pretty and I'm sure she'll be able to use it and hope she can find time to polish it. I got there about two thirty or three and Leone had taken the day off. Or rather had switched days with her counterpart at the nursing home. So we got everything packed and I got everything in the car. And it's a good thing I had that station wagon, although I could have gotten it in my car. But this made it a lot easier. I found the bible, and there is some information in it but I don't think anything that you don't already know. And then Leone gave me several other bibles so, I guess you can read passages from the Bible to your heart's content. I also picked up a lot of pictures that she gave me. In fact, she gave just about everything there was in the way of pictures and when I finally got home I found she gave me some things that were really of more interest to her, such as Ken's high school diploma, than it is to me. However I'll bundle these up and sometime after Christmas I'll send them back to you. To Leone I mean, to Leone. Now the things I have for you I'm going to hang onto at least until after Christmas. And then I'll either send them to you or if we decide to come up to Boston then I would bring them. We have several pieces of furniture that we, might be willing to give to Diane if she wants them. And if so, I may switch cars again with the plant manager and bring them up there. Diane is coming home for Christmas, so we'll see her then. That'll probably be the first time we will hear from her too as she hasn't written us in I don't know when. Leone could not find the two chin ties that you spoke of. Now she gave me quite a few chin ties which I have and which I will let you look at and you can pick out any of them that you want or all of them. Unfortunately some of the people in there I don't know and I don't know whether you know and they aren't marked of course. I think when we come to Boston I will bring all that stuff with me whether you keep it or I keep it and we'll try to figure out who some of the people are. The only person I can really recognize when she was young is Flo Scobee and I don't know why I recognize her because I wouldn't recognize her when she was old. But I remember some of those people in those pictures and maybe between us we can remember a few more. I tell you one thing, I have resolved to go through all my pictures and write everybody's name on them on the back and also the date. That way our kids can throw them away more systematically. When they get them. I took Leone and Susan to dinner. She didn't want to go to Green Lake. Which was okay with me, I was going to go take her to the Heidel House instead of Norton's for a change but she said she'd rather eat downtown so we went down to the town whatever it is house restaurant and we had a surprisingly very good dinner. I shouldn't say surprisingly that's a pretty nice restaurant. And then we walked down and walked back which was invigorating and... fine. I got up real early the next morning by myself. In fact, I left about five thirty because I wanted to get as far as our plant in Lorain, Ohio which is just west of Cleveland. I was going to stay overnight with some real good friends of mine who worked for us there. Not so much that I wanted to stay overnight with them but I didn't want to park that station wagon with all those things in them, in it, in the ah... in a motel parking lot. Because then I would have to unload everything as I certainly wouldn't leave anything exposed in a motel parking lot. Well, as it turned out I got to Lorain about three thirty and I thought, ah hell with it and I drove all the way to Buffalo. This is a little long drive for me although I used to be able to do it without any problem but, I'd rather be in home than I would sitting in some motel somewhere. So anyhow, I drove all the way to Buffalo. It's about 750 miles and it took me 13 hours. I also could not find any letter from the Rays on their trip west. I have seen that letter and I should have done this before I send you this tape but I have a lot of those papers and I'm going to go through them this weekend and I'll see what I've got. I really don't think I've got that letter though but I've got a lot on the genealogy of our family and as I said I'll make a copy of it and that I'll send to you in very near future. Maybe in lieu of a Christmas card or something like that. Not really, not really. Leone is fixing up the house she is going to have the ceiling in the kitchen redone which of course is in terrible shape. She is going to have gypsum wall board put over the entire ceiling and then that will be finished and painted and none of the cracks then of course will show. In fact she wants to have the crack by that fireplace fixed so I told her how to do it, which is simply have the drywall man tape that crack as he would a joint in drywall because otherwise if you just patch that plaster crack it'll come back, especially one like that. I did make the mistake of saying that, she asked me what it was caused from I said, well movement in the house, and of course now she thinks the house is going to fall down but I reassured her that with the older movement was because of probably her fireplace which changes the heat in those walls and... undoubtedly cracks that place. The whole house is cracked actually, I thought many years ago, if that house was ever left to me, which it wasn't and which I'm glad it wasn't. The only way you could ever fix it would be to put drywall over every wall and every ceiling and paint and, you know, repaint it. However, I don't think Leone can afford that. Although Leone is going ahead with fixing things up as she gets money. For example, she had the garage doors extended out towards the street about two feet so that she can get her car in there. I mean, everything she does is very logical except that you wonder whether she has to do it because she hasn't had it that way for several years. However this business about the car she couldn't get her car in the garage. Now she could overcome that by having a compact car but, I don't know. I'm not going to get into a discussion on this tape about how people spend money because everybody spends money differently. And... it's so easy to criticize someone but if they pinch in one place so they can spend it in another that should be their prerogative. I think I'm a little tight so maybe I, I pinch a little more than I spend but nevertheless I enjoy saving money. I guess I could be a miser if I had enough money to be a miser with. However, I am not as bad as brother Jim. I'm sure. Well that's about all the news I have on the trip to Berlin and I don't have a great deal of news about us other than that we are now really socializing and going to lots of dinner parties and living it up. When Thanksgiving comes Ginger will come over for dinner and no one else. We are getting a very small turkey about nine or ten pounds and then we don't have to freeze too much of it because at Christmas when both Ken and Diane are with us along with Ginger we'll get a big one and we don't mind eating that a little bit more. Well I'm going to close. It certainly is a beautiful day. In fact, we've had a beautiful November I have to say it's probably the nicest month we've had all year, except that of course it's a little bit on the chilly side. But the sun is shining brightly, there isn't a cloud in the sky and it has been that way for the last four or five days and it's supposed to be that way at least through the weekend. So the longer we do not have any snow the better I like it. Well, someday I'll have to come up there to collect all my tapes that I keep sending to you. But I look at it this way, I'd buy you a martini someplace so I guess I don't mind buying a tape. Well, that's all. We're all fine, hope you are too. Jack.