August 31^st, 2003

I tried to do nothing and just take it easy my last three days before I went back to work but I couldn’t sit still. I started to open up the ceiling in the upstairs part of the addition in preparation of the demolition. I wanted to get an idea of how I would do it. Once I felt comfortable I could dismantle it I went to the city to get a permit. They were not to keen on the idea. My plan was to take off the upstairs section this summer so I could use the lumber to have interior trim milled. I wanted to put a temporary roof on the remaining downstairs section until next summer. The city building department didn’t like this. They wanted me to submit plans for a new roof for the downstairs section to the design review committee. Not really what I wanted to do. I decided to go ahead and get a permit for the rewiring and start that instead.

The classes I took really paid off. The city building department wanted me to submit plans on the rewire and they had several questions about specifics. I had no problem submitting plans and answering the questions. I had my permit in about two hours.

I started in the upstairs in the attic laying wires for the switches and outlets in the upstairs bedrooms. I had to pull up some floor boards in the attic to get access to the second story ceiling. Under one of the boards was a letter dated September 24^th, 1918. It was in an envelope with Japanese postage and post marks and was sent from a man named Richard Blamey in Japan to a man named William C. James. It was addressed to W. C. James, Knicker Bocker Hotel, Post & Taylor St., San Francisco, CA.

Richard had recently arrived in Osaka, Japan to work for the Toi Gold Mine Company in Izu, Japan outside of Kobe. I get the feeling he is an engineer of some sort. The mine is several hindered years old but has been out of service for quite some time. He talks of “hoping to get it up and running in 12 months or so”. The general manager and the managing director of the mine picked him up at the station in Kobe in a “Pierce Arrow elegantly upholstered” (a car). After several days of meetings at “a fine hotel were we ate mostly foreign food” in Kobe they take a “steamer” for a 2 hour journey to the mine. He goes on to describe the valley the mine is in. Sounds very rural with mostly farming of oranges and persimmons. It sounds like it is going to be an extended stay in Japan for Richard because the company is building him a house near some hot springs close to the mine.

There was a second letter from someone else dated August 22^nd, 1919 but it is in very bad shape and I really can’t read enough to figure out what the person is talking about. It is also addresses to someone in San Francisco and it appears to be written by someone in Kentucky. It is very personal, gossipy type stuff. Now every time I pull up a board the first thing I do is get the flash light and see if there is anything of interest underneath. So far, the only other thing I’ve found worth mentioning is an old silver spoon. It has some green tarnish on it and looks like it has been there for a while. I have plenty more boards to pull up, so who knows what else I’ll find. I’m still hoping to find Grand Pa’s old silver dollar collection, or maybe a stack of stock certificates for that new fangled American Telephone and Telegraph Co. (AT&T).