Dr. Forrest C. Allen - Page 2 Feb. 19, 1944

The third possibility is to take the Santa Fe out of Kansas
City to Fort Madison, Iowa, and I would be glad to meet you there
in my car and drive you to Cedar Rapids. It is approximately one
hundred miles from Cedar Rapids, but by April we should be having
some fairly nice weather, and I should be glad to meet you when-
ever you would arrive in Fort Madison and bring you to Cedar Rapids.
I could also plan to take you back to Fort Madison to catch the
Santa Fe back to Kansas City. I was unable to get a Santa Fe time-
table, but I do know that they run a lot of good trains on the
Kansas City to Chicago run and I think you could more or less pick
the best time for leaving Kansas City, etc.

The fastest way to get back to Kansas City from here would be
for us to drive you to Marshalltown, which is only sixty miles,
after the dinner and you could catch the Chicago Great Western out
of there at approximately midnight, arriving in Kansas City at 7:00
A.M., and I think you could be back in Lawrence by 8:50 or 9:00 A.M.

If you are not in quite that big a hurry, you can spend the
night here in Cedar Rapids and I can return you to Fort Madison and
you can catch the Santa Fe back to Kansas City so as to arrive in
Lawrence late Friday afternoon or evening. Or you could take the
Interurban from here back to Iowa City, catch the Rock Island Rocket
to Des Moines, getting out of there about 11:00 P.M. Friday night
and arriving in Kansas City at 7:00 A.M. Saturday morning and be
back in Lawrence by 9:00 A.M. These are the possibilities, so take
your pick.

If you can remain over night in Cedar Rapids, Mrs. Isett and
I would like to have you stay in our home as we have plenty of room.
If you prefer to stay at a hotel, let me know and I will make a re-
servation for you at the Hotel Roosevelt.

As I believe I have written you, this dinner is an annual all-
sports amateur banquet given by the YMCA honoring amateur athletic
groups in our community. There will be some awards presented that
evening to champions, but you will not have to do any presenting,
as "Cap" Hedges will make the presentations. Your friend, Ira
Carrithers, will introduce you, and I am general chairman of the
dinner. We would like to have you speak forty to forty-five minutes.

There is one other favor we would like to ask. The YMCA has two
or three hundred boys between the age of ten and fourteen who are
very interested in basketball and many of them play in a junior bas-
ketball league at the Y. The physical director, Gurney Day, asked
me to see if you would be willing, provided you arrive in Cedar
Rapids in time, to meet with these boys for about thirty minutes on
Thursday afternoon, say at 4:30, to let the boys get acquainted with
you and be able to say that they had met Dr. Allen. A few remarks
about physical fitness in training for basketball would be very ap-