Townsend Brown IV

Letters Menu | Previous Letter | Next Letter

December 11, 1957

Dearest,

I get so very few letters from you that I get concerned about you. Yet I know you have been very busy answering your cards, etc.

On Monday, we had a meeting here with Drs. and Mrs. B.D. We had been working night and day, Saturdays and Sundays for the last two weeks preparing for it. I had worked until 3 AM even on the night before the meeting, so I was afraid that I might not be awake when they got here. But everything went along alright and I believe the meeting served the purpose - although, like all of the other meetings of that type in the past, the ice and reserve was almost impossible to break through.

The D's were nice enough - he much younger and nicer looking than I expected - and she, a studious (small and slight stature) artistic and somewhat foreign in appearance.

Frankly, I got the distinct impression that neither one of them really grasped what it was all about. But Agnew had great fun, explaining theories and showing equipment in operation. In the oil tank test (as usual) B.D. predicted that it would move a certain way - but when the voltage was turned on, it moved in the opposite direction!

Agnew is quite enthusiastic and spend more time in the lab than in his own office. He has just finished a letter of five pages to the D's and the people at Princeton (also B.M. and the patent attorney) outlining his ideas as to how to proceed from this point. All this in view of the national emergency, etc.

It looks as if he intends to go right on with the flame jet and tribocounterbary into January and beyond. My agreement actually terminates on Jan. 15th, with the last money due Jan. 1st - $500.

Speaking on money. I suppose we are getting very close to the bottom again. I received the enclosed (rather interesting) letter from T.J. (en route, in his boat) and felt obliged to send him $50, which I did.

The checks I have written since leaving Umatilla are
    Dec. 6 YMCA ...... (laundry) ............................. $ 4.29
    Dec. 7 Trotmans (office expenses) ..................... 12.88
    Dec. 7 Cash ($20 to T.J. $10 personal ................ 30.00
    Dec. 10 Cash ($30 to T.J. $10 personal............... 30.00
    Dec. 11 YMCA ..................................................... 19.00

    and now I am all out of blank checks, so please send me some.

If we are going to be overdrawn, tell me and I'll try to borrow some more to carry us.

Please keep well.

TTB