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Fran to her Mom & Dad; Mar. 14, 1946  Oak Ridge, TN

Fran to her Parents in Conn.

    From 118 Lee Drive, Lenoir City, Tennessee

                                                          Thurs., March 14, 1946

Dear Ones,

   Summer is here for several days according to the newspaper.  We have allowed the furnace to expire!  This weekend we’re going to take a motorboat out on the river and I hope it’s warm enough & that it doesn’t rain so I’ll get a sunburn, and that we catch some fish.

 It looks as though I’m not going to carry through this wonderful trip of mine at least not as soon as April.  Work has been somewhat dull & I thought it would be a simple matter to take off a few days.  But course I would choose a time close to the Crossroads date.  The A-Bomb tests have seemed to make us busier & busier & I guess I’ll have to be satisfied with a vacation later on.  Maybe I can come next fall.  Not that you seem very enthusiastic by the way.

 However, I shall come as soon as I can whether you want me to or not.  I sure would like to see you some time soon.  Airplane reservations are still hard to get in Knoxville so you have to request one quite far ahead.  Probably later the situation will change.  And then, of course, it’s rather foolish to plan a particular weekend when travel by air depends on the weather.

 One of the kids in the lab planned to go to Mardi Gras by air & the plane was grounded & she didn’t have as much time in New Orleans as she would have if she had planned to go by train in the first place because she then had to wait to get a train reservation!  If I can get the time off I’ll still come, but the way things are buzzing down here now, I doubt if I’ll be able to wangle the time off for quite a while.  We just got a 4.5% raise so it is more difficult than ever to quit!

 Evelyn sent a clipping of an article written by her in the Catholic Transcript, so as you probably know she has her job.  I certainly hope great things come of it.

 We have a good sized plot of land in back of our house, and Bill and I keep encouraging each other to start a garden, but so far we’ve gone fishing instead.  We’ve dug a goodly plot up looking for worms.  And I just read an article that the more earthworms in the garden, the bigger the harvest!

                            Love, Fran