Transcription
Irene,- I also delayed mailing this, feeling sure that on the next day I’d have definite word for you about your cook.
W
Thursday, 5-25-78.
Dear Family,-
First, a salute to Jeannie! Your first three Family Letters since your arrival in Vermont have been wonderful, and in addition to all you had to tell us, you wrote weekly. The more we can exchange letters regularly, preferably weekly, the better. I try to set a good example by writing at least 52 Family Letters each year.
Jeannie has had a lot to write about, and so have I. In fact, I could write a Quickie almost daily in order to keep a diary, but I can’t get the time to do that. Each day is so full. My alarm gets me up at 7:00. With a doughnut and hot chocolate “to go” and an orange from my Red Owl supply in my room, I eat my breakfast at Cove Point. Some days just Rudy arrives at 8:00 while on other days it is Rudy and one of his sons or both of them. On some days I have to divide my time between Cove Point and Cedar Lodge. For instance, today I left Cove Point at 9:45 in order to be at Mertaugh’s dock at 10:00 to take one of Nye’s men over to Cedar Lodge to work on the water tank. First he is building a ladder to get from Mike’s room up to the tank room without having to use that old wall ladder where you lean backwards to climb up the inward slanting wall of the tower. I left him on this ladder job in order to come over and get this in today’s outgoing mail, so you will receive it Saturday, for tomorrows mail won’t get delivered until next Tuesday, on account of Memorial Day. By the time I get back to the island, my worker will probably be starting on the job of scraping the rust from the inside of the tank with a wire brush to get it clean before applying the fiberglass lining.
You’ll have to see the slides I have been taking almost daily out at Cove Point to get a true understanding of the ups and downs of that job. The big 6” pump Rudy brought down from the Soo worked O.K. from the top of the coffer dam until the Cove became about half empty, and then Rudy had to bring his backhoe out to dig a hole and lower the pump into it so the mouth of the suction hose could reach down to near the bottom.. [sic] When it began sucking air at the lower level, we had to take the 6” pump back to the Soo and subtitute [sic] a little 2” pump that could work right from the shore line. The 6” pump had a 12-gallon gas tank which had to be refilled about every four hours to keep the pump runing [sic] continuously. The little 2” pump had such a small gas tank that it has to be refilled about every two hours. Rudy starts the pump in the morning and if he is not working at the Cove throughout the day, I make the extra trips out there to refill the tank and keep the pump going.
I have plenty more to tell you to make this a full one-pager, but if I don’t quit now, I’ll miss the last out-going mail. I’ll write again on Memorial Day for mailing next Tuesday.
Abruptly,Transcriber
Cindi RokeLanguage
English