Arnold Gibson was Lad’s best friend and he joined the older boys on many adventures, including the trip to the Chicago World’s Fair. I think you’ll be able to figure out one of the reasons why they were best friends. They kept in touch with letters several times a year while Lad was in Venezuela.At this point, he’s been there for a year.
January 4, 1940 
Dear Laddie,
My card made a bum start, but I hope it finally reached you.
Well, I’m fairly familiar with your doings via your letters to your Dad. I go over and get him to read some of them now and then. However, a lot has happened around here that may be news to you.
Anne Holt was married in September and has a nice little cottage on a pond over between Nichols and Shelton.
My folks have moved over to a place near the river between Shelton and Stratford, and I am boarding at Pratt’s. Alta and I became engaged this New Year’s.
Last summer I worked a couple of months with contractors on the Merritt Parkway at good pay, and so saved enough for a nice trip up into Maine and Canada. I worked in the woods first, and then on the wagon rock drills and bulldozers. By the way the Parkway is now open from New York to Nichols, so it’s a cinch to drive to the city.
This is spring I got a nearly new, slightly damaged canoe, which I repaired and made a rack on “Nomad” for, so with a two speed rear end, new oil pump, fog, reverse, cab, and clearance lights, and numerous other new improvements. “Old Nomad” was in great shape for the trip.
We (Alta and I) took off at around noon one day after a couple of false starts due to a lost knife, and a leaky oil line, and spent two months around New England stopping at various relative’s homes and American Youth Hostels. You may have heard of the latter, it is a fine organization of several million persons to further travel in the great outdoors, and provide Hostels with proper accommodations (rough and ready ones) and chaperones at convenient overnight stops. It is also international.
Well, we had a great trip, all in all, with many minor adventures and only a few mishaps.” Nomad” performed nobly with only a broken front spring and relapsed generator to her discredit in 2400 miles. Oh yes, she has the speedometer now too.
I worked for Ruby for two weeks and also cleared the lines around the piece of land I have up there. I had to dig up an “oldest resident” to help find the ancient markers, and do the rest with compass and axe as the deed was written in terms of long dead persons. What a time!
We really swarmed all over Mount Katahdin this time, spending four days at it. You remember the little Chimney Pond in the bottom of the gulf we looked into from the summit? Well, on its shore are a cabin and some shelters operated by one Mr. Dudley, who is certainly a real character, and what yarns he spins by the fire at night! There were around six or eight people there and the women and food were kept in the cabin at night, as several bears, one monster, came messing around every night, and we got a swell chance to watch them.
We fell in with a couple of fellows from Boston and after much debate borrowed Dudley’s Alpine rope, and climbed the Chimney Trail which is really just a gully which runs up the nearly perpendicular head wall for around 4000 feet, and contains among other hazards ice and three nearly impossible choke stones (boulders). The 4000 feet (and return) from the top by an easy(?) trail took all day, and in one place we hoisted Alta 40 feet up an overhang, but when it was done we were really proud of ourselves.
We visited Rusty’s Spring Island in our canoe and had a great time in general, in spite of much rain, and even snow (in the middle of September in Canada), and got home with only one flat.
Three days after we got home I went to work in the Stanley Works. I run a machine which cuts steel up into strips for razor blades. The work is steady and the pay pretty good, but it is pretty dull. Cecelia still has not gotten her new Ford that was promised for December 15.
Have you heard about Cedric’s ’33 Plymouth that he got in New York for $50? I did a very complete motor overhaul on it, and it runs fine except that I can’t get quite as much oil pressure as I would like in spite of new gears and main and a rod bearings.
I just did a valve and carbon job on my Packard and she runs like new. Well almost. For extremely cold starts or low battery, I have a hot shot battery and master coil (Ford) independent of the regular system.
Laddie, I’d like to hear about the various conveyances you people use, and the engines you work on, and all that sort of thing. And when do you think you may be home again? I had Spring Replacement put two front springs in your Packard the other day.
Let me hear from you!
Your friend
Gibby
Did you figure it out? All that talk about vehicle maintenance gave it away, didn’t it. That was one love they shared. Arnold and Alta purchased, at some point a little island, very near Rusty’s island, which my family used from the mid-20’s and eventually bought.Learn more about that in my post “A Piece of Liquid Heaven” on 11.6.2012.
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Judy Guion
"Greatest Generation" Life Lessons 