October 29, 1975: Wednesday

Another busy, beautiful day.

Dr. Treves took supplies out to 1A. Calvin and I loaded the truck and Cal went to listen at Mac Center for the 9:00 am scheduled radio check with 1A. I waited for the helo take off, picked up Cal, and went to fill 589 with gas.

Mailed the post card and a letter to the U.S. Board of Geographic Names.

Cleaned out the porch and refrigerator. Rearranged things and started to rewind the wire wound around the nails on a box. What a hassle. Calvin gets sort of mad because it’s all screwed up. A real mess.

On the way back from lunch, I check the drying mud samples. The two little jars are done, but the big ones have a lot of water in them.

Found the book I was looking for. It converts degrees and minutes of latitude and longitude to meters at every degree of latitude.

Our official position: 77º 28’ 19” S and 164º 25’ 32” E.

Calvin, through his patience, found a way out of the sticky-wicket of tangled wire. It’s not been a good day for him. He’s very tired and I’m afraid I irritate him. I wish he’d yell at me.

We were coiling up the wire when Kathy arrived, with Mike Wing. Peter was over at Scott Base.

Kathy. Short, 5’ 5”, maybe. Short brown hair parted on the right, swept across her forehead, bounces with her head. Brown eyes. Lightly freckled on the checks. Big jaw, but not prominent.

A nice smile.

She looks like she could be Peter’s sister, not his student.

Oh, well. She’s female. The prettiest Kiwi bird I’ve seen. And most probably Peter’s. I hope that I can be her friend.

Wearing wool everything, sweater, shirt, pants, and socks, big clodhoppers with the socks rolled down over the tops, she reminds me of a 1930s English movie. Brave heroine of scientist hero, enduring hardships. Or maybe a school girl tomboy on one of those CBS Children’s Film Festivals that mom watches and I hated. I always hated the stereotyped boys in those shows. The girls were O.K.

I drove the Japanese over to Scott Base to make a phone call to Tokyo. Got Cal some Ross Dependency stamps.

Go back. Get the Japanese. Mail a letter for Howard. Forgot to bring my camera to take a picture of Mount Terror and Mount Terra Nova.

We play Musical Chairs with 589. And in the mean time, find out that Max’s core cutter doesn’t work so well. We’ll use it as a core holder and cut the core ourselves.

Kathy is rather intelligent, at least in understanding a problem. She hassled me about our light switches being backwards.

This will be a good test to see if I get paranoid about her, or if I get possessive or something.

Four, count ‘em, four letters in the mail. One from home. Kay’s senior picture, but not even a signature on it. One from Grandma. She didn’t even answer (or explain why not) any of the questions I asked her.

Joni got Homecoming Queen. Yeah! Van Erisman got King? I think the system is broken down. Have David’s address. He’ll never get around to writing back, but I’ll send him one with our cachets on it.

A letter from Deb. All right! Lot of explaining, careful wording, and hope in my letter to her.

And one from Joy. My season is complete. She wins the sunshine award.

Went to the lab. Calvin counting points. Dr. Treves took off to resupply the second tractor train, which left this morning exactly at nine. Deb gave me her phone number, but the ham operator hasn’t called me yet. It’ll be a tough decision. Talk to her (a number I know), or talk to Cathy (and a hassle getting through), or to Berzel, just for the hell of it.

Peter Bunch went to get empty DFA barrels. He pulled out the bottom one in the pile. The others came tumbling down behind him.

Worked on Grab Sample #7, photo micron sizing it, wrote this, and started getting things lined up for letters (pictures to whom, letter to the Housing Office, etc.).

I missed six on my football predictions.

Deb wants to know all about CosRay Doug.

Doug wants to know how we got our present music system and about non-European music scales.

Took a picture of the midnight sun, setting over Black Island, due south.