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October 1, 1947
Dear Mother and Daddy,
I have come to the library to write you a letter because I know if I don't I shall never get to it written, and as I feel already that my name is very black around home - I desperately thought I'd better. I just started my classes today. I have had two and am going to another at eleven. I am taking Accounting, Business Law, and Public Administration. They are all five (accounting six) units - which is really quite a bit. Every one who has taken either Accounting or Business Law says that I am silly to take them both because they are both so hard and take so much time, particularly accounting. You have a problem to do every week which according to every one I've heard, takes hours and hours. The professor even warned us this morning that we were going to have to
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spend a lot of time on it, and you must because they give you an extra unit for all the outside work which is really very unusual. I am going to try it at least for two weeks and see if I can't do it, but if it is too much I may have to drop Public Administration and take something else that is a little easier. I certainly won't quit without trying, but I've gotten a little scared because everyone I've talked to thinks I am crazy to take such a course.
I registered on Monday afternoon. I wasn't really supposed to, but I thought I should try and get my registration book early or I would never get in the accounting class. I went over and got it about two, and about two & ten they decided not to give anymore out because just new students were supposed to register on Monday, and old students on Tuesday; so I was really pretty lucky. I
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over to the Political Science Department to talk to some one about my course and found that my favorite stand by Professor Fairman had gone over to the Law School. But I did get ahold of a very good man and he talked to me for about an hour about my program, and we figured out what I had left to take so that I would have good preparation for a Civil Service job. This included accounting and statistics sometime - both of which scare me to death. We also counted up my units and found that I had only one hundred and forty and you need one hundred and eighty; so he seemed to think I should have to take three quarters instead of two, because they will never allow you to take twenty units a quarter unless you are a straight A student. However, I do think he counted wrong and that I really have about one hundred and fifty-three
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in which case I could finish pretty easily in two quarters if these courses don't prove to much for me altogether. If I do it in two quarters though I probably won't get to take all the things I was advised to take. I am still a little undecided as to just what to do.
Ruth and I arrived here about nine o'clock on Sunday night. We left as scheduled about five thirty last Thursday, but when we got to Harrisburg, we found that the schedule of our car through to San Francisco had changed and wasn't due in Harrisburg until two fifty-two in the morning, so we had a nice little wait of about six hours. We tried to go to a movie which was just across the street from the station, but the town was an hour later than train time because it was on daylight savings time and the trains run acording to eastern standard time; so we only got to see
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the last twenty minutes of the movie. Then we had to come back to the station and just read magazines until train time. By the time we got to bed we were so tired that we nearly dropped dead. Ruth's Aunt and Uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Fesster, and her cousin David met us in Chicago. They came down from St. Paul on the train the night before and were going back on the train Friday night; so they really wern't staying at any hotel where we dould get in touch with them to tell them that our train time was changed. We knew they would be at the Palmer House sometime; so we left a message there hoping they would get it, and luckily they did; so everything worked out fine. They were all so nice; I just couldn't have spent a pleasant four hours in Chicago. First Mr. Fessler hired a taxi for about an hour or so and we drove all over Chicago and out by Lake
