Sat. Eve., Sept. 14

Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Donohue

1801 John F. Kennedy Boulevard

Philadelphia, Pa. 19103

Dear Linus,

Just in case (very unlikely) you haven’t seen the enclosed I thought you’d be interested.

Thank you very much for your comments on my Faurier-DNA manuscript. I’ll send you version II as soon as it comes back from the typist.

Largely because of the P.S. on your letter I am now spending every available free moment on my elements book. As soon as it is finished I’ll send you a Xerox.

Now that the dust has settled after the publication of J.D. Watson’s book, may I remind you of when I sought some advice from you, in your Church office at Caltech some years back? I realize now that what I needed was really psychiatric advice – at that time there were only three people in the world who knew how it really happened, J.D.W., F.H.C.C., & me, and now everyone knows, except that F.H.C.C. has probably forgotten.

But I shouldn’t bother you with my problems.

Things here at Penn are coming along very well – I’m very pleased at having moved.

Sincerely,

Jerry

Saturday 14 September 1968

Dear Pete,

I'm glad you liked the present, and glad you could exchange it for something better. Looking at a book on model Railroading I have here, I think you are right that the double-door cars were used on the Pasadena-Sierra Madre run. The best-looking interurbans of all, at least in pictures in this book, are the Niles cars used by the Oregon Electric Car Co. They had wood sides, arched windows, some had observation platforms. I now have 6 locomotives, a couple of which I got 20 years ago, varying in cost from $8 for a simple brass 0-4-OT to $80 for a fully painted brass highly-detailed 2-8-0 (made by United). The most fun is to either build up completely or at least add detailing myself, but it is amazing to see the quality available in the ready-built models. For example, 20 years ago I bought an EMD E-7 A and B unit diesel. It has a zamac body casting which looks good, but needs the simple addition of handrails, horns, window glass, painting, numbering and naming, etc. Then some of the simpler brass locomotives come without air compressors, piping, brake shoes, air tanks—all of which are available to be soldered on, or screwed on, which requires drills, taps, dies. One of the difficulties in living here is having to wait so long for mail, since not much is stocked here, so if I break a #78 drill I have to wait for 3 weeks for another—or the letter saying the supplier is out of stock. Oh well...

Meanwhile I'm trying to get ready to leave, but I haven't made much concrete progress. It looks like it's getting later and later into the winter. I don't suppose it matters much, now that I've missed the fall weather, except that I want to be back here by the children's spring vacation in April. [...]

Best of luck on your book project. I don't envy you.

Much love

Linus

PS: You might tell Mom I'm thinking of naming my railroad the Salmon Creek Railroad - but it would be an expanded Salmon Creek with room for a town, branch line up the valley, lumbering line into the mountains, harbor, main line along the coast - more like Morro Bay. All this is in the fantasy stage [...]