Post date: Aug 13, 2014 4:18:26 PM
16 April 1966, Neuss am Rhein
I’m waiting to take a shower at the public swimming pool—during a wedding when we can’t work on the organ [in the church].
The Juliusburgers [my landlord] surprised me with presents of two phonograph records and a kuchen (cake) [for my birthday]. Since we left at noon for Neuss I brought the cake with me, and we had a party on Friday.
The work on the organ got off to a good start. The church installed a block and tackle in the ceiling so we could lift the heavy parts onto the gallery. We weren’t able to fit all the parts into the moving van and trailer, but the carpenters come Monday with another truck-full and stay a week to build the case. The organ is 25 feet high.
Neuss is not particularly large, but has more tradition than Bielefeld. The streetcar runs over the bridge to Düsseldorf, so we will probably go there several times before we are finished. Tomorrow I think I’ll drive to Frankfurt; I met a fellow in the army there who is very interested in seeing a pipe organ in action. Hope I can bring him back with me for a day’s visit. He is an organist and has fooled around a bit with electronic organs.
We really had funny weather the last couple of days. You probably read about it in the papers. In the middle of April it snowed—fairly heavily in Hamburg—and we had snow and rain here in Neuss. Farther south in Bavaria it was sunny. It’s warm today. Fortunately the church is heated.
(After the bath.) I should be working, naturally, but after the wedding someone locked the church and there is no possible way to contact the people inside, so I’m lying in my hotel room, listening to the radio, which I fortunately brought with me.
Pomona College sent me the College Placement Annual, so I think I’ll work a bit at getting a job—hopefully half-time—in the Fall. There are a couple dozen interesting-looking companies and three private schools in Seattle, as well as the public schools.