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Introduction
Bill
and I were married during World War I, and after he returned
from France, he wasn't sure in what field of endeavor he
wanted to earn his living. He had taken an electrical engineering
course at Norwich University, a military college in Vermont,
but, because of the war, did not graduate. His grandfather,
with whom he lived after the divorce of his mother and father,
wanted him to become a lawyer.
So, after a succession of unsatisfactory jobs, either to
him or to his boss, and while employed by the United States
Fidelity and Guaranty Co., he took a night law course at
the Brooklyn Law School. His job as investigator of theft
had shown him much of the seamy side of the law and dissuaded
him from becoming a lawyer. He finished the law course,
however, and paid for his diploma, but never bothered to
pick it up.
He had been interested for some time in the stock market,
and in why people buy into companies that they know nothing
about, gambling with stocks as they would with chips in
a Casino. Would it not be much safer and surer if investors
knew something about the companies into which they were
buying?
When his grandfather wanted to purchase a cow, he went to
look at the cow, feel its legs, inquire about how much milk
it gave, its age and forebears, etc. Why shouldn't this
same principle be applied to the buying of stocks?
Feeling he was just the man to do the investigating, Bill
consulted with several friends on Wall Street, but, finding
no one enthusiastic about his ideas, and knowing the proof
of the pudding is in the eating, he decided to take a year
out to test his theory.
My reasons for wishing to take the time off were quite different.
Although I thought Bill's stock theories were sensible,
I wanted to get him away from New York, with bars (saloons
they were called then) on many corners, and away from his
buddies, both of which I considered contributed greatly
to his excessive drinking. A year in the open, which we
both loved, would give me a chance to straighten him out.
We had given up our apartment on Amity St., and were leaving
from my parents' home on Clinton St., Brooklyn.
It was not always convenient to write my diary every day
on the trip, so the headings often cover several previous
days. As I sent my notes home in letters to Mother, I made
no reference to Bill's drinking; in fact he drank very little
during the year, and the trip did us both a lot of good.
During the editing of the diary, for clarity's sake, I have
added a few place names and explanations of now-unclear
activities; otherwise the diary is as a young couple found
their world in 1925-26*.
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*Bill and Lois
wintered 1926-27 at Clinton St., in Brooklyn. The last of
diary of Motorcycle Hobo “trip” was completed
in April 1927. The author scribed this work in the 1920's,
but it was not typewritten until 1973.
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