October 19, 1975: Sunday

Slept ‘til 10:30, except at 8:00 I called 459. But nobody answered. Tiny Tim must not be having his show today. Went to breakfast-lunch, and the equipment was torn out of the studio.

I planned to go up to the lab and write letters and help load for Dr. Treves’s journey tomorrow, but I fell asleep until 3:30. I wonder if he’ll be mad about it. So instead of going up and finding out, I wrote letters.

I guess they didn’t do anything this afternoon. So after dinner we went up to the BFC to load this real long, narrow sled and the snowtrack. The weather is bad, blowing and snowing. Peter B. and I drove over to get some gas in the these two 15 gallon barrels. Peter insists they’re 12 gallon. But he’s Imperial.

Peter’s talk was on the drill sites. It looks, according to Cal and Emmett, who worked for oil companies, that there’s a better than even chance of hitting natural gas. We won’t admit it. There was a good crowd. Two girls, Jan and some Navy girl, in the front row. She was with a Navy-type guy. She looked like Mary Ann Wilson. But I think she had an ugly face. I couldn’t tell. I was in the balcony.

Dave was real nice to me. He wanted me to run the slide projector. Figures.

The old gentleman that looks like somebody’s grandpa, wears a white turtleneck sweater, and looks like Albert Einstein’s brother, is with the interior decorator the Navy hired. He sat next to Nartsiss and thanked everybody for being so kind to a foreigner.

Nartsiss wants me to get some of Peter’s and Dr. Treves’s publications run off. From Peter’s talk, it seemed that we were contributing greatly to scientific knowledge in Antarctica. I wished I’d known that earlier.

After the lecture we (Peter is part of we, now), with Dave and Mike Wing (a driller) went to the Officers’ Club. Dave and Peter bought. The movie was Fiddler on the Roof. I hope they show it again, because I thought of Andria when I saw it was playing. Besides, it’s a good movie to see, anyway.

I was informed that I will be going to the Antarctic Survival Seminar next Thursday. I don’t want to go, but I will. I’m not very adept at camping. They’ll send me home after the first night. I’ll go along, just to see if I weather out the hassle. I’ll go along, but I won’t put any effort into it. I’ll miss moving the camp to the drill site. If the weather stays bad, I’ll miss this seminar.

Sidebar: From Plain Speaking - (About MacArthur) He was just a man who couldn’t sleep easy at night without thinking up ways and means of getting himself and everybody else into trouble.