Practice Using Verb Tenses Verbs are like bridges: they span the past, present, and future and take you there.
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| Practice Using Verb Tenses Verbs are like bridges: they span the past, present, and future and take you there. Need a Dictionary? [Open Dictionary][Close Dictionary] [open new window] |
| Read the following letter written by a bridge engineer who worked for
[Frisco Lines][Close Web] [open new window] based in Springfield, Missouri. The style is informal as it was written to a younger sister. Read full sentences to get a sense of the time frame. Look for time adverbials. Select the verb that is the correct tense for the context. Green signifies a correct answer. |
| A Letter from Grandfather Written March 29, 1928 in Demopolis, Alabama |
| Dear Agnes, Mary your letter to me. I it today. I certainly sorry to hear of Uncle Jim Kennedy's death. But we all , considering the life he and the end coming while he at prayer there in the hay loft that it a happy death. Of course, you younger and him as well as the older kin, but as I him, his whole life in that one purpose--to prepare for death. Well, I still in old Alabama and to be here at least a month longer. Soon we the big lift bridge completed and five small girder bridges to build and then we through with the bridges on the new line. The grading all completed and they still about twenty miles of rail to lay to complete the new railway from Aberdeen, Mississippi to Pensacola, Florida. They trains now on 80 miles of the north end of the line and on 147 miles of the south end. The total length of the new line about 310 miles. I home twice since Christmas. My last trip a business trip on February 20. I sure Mary and the kids a lot, but they all to me often - even old Buntza pet dog always me a long letter at least once each week. The kids all well and just about as well as if I home. Mary with rheumatism or neuritis this winter, but I she is better as she it in her last letters but about painting and papering the house, and she and Richard a garden--mostly flowers, I . We rather queer weather here in Alabama this spring--most of the time nice balmy warm sunshine then terrific rainstorms and cold waves. This evening a cyclone about ten miles north of here, and everybody anxious for a while as they the big black funnel sweep past. I what damage it . Cyclones rare in this county. So are high strong winds, but today--all day-- we high strong west winds--never a stiffer wind on the open Texas plains. About three weeks ago, one of the bridgemen from the bridge tower and . The poor fellow any in his fall as his head one of the steel struts and his brains before he very far. His home in Kansas City and we his body there for burial. Well Agnes, this a great job--strenuous, hard, exacting, but interesting work. Hundreds of tons of steel to cantilever out over the channel, which must be kept entirely clear for the never ending stream of steam boats--no end to calculations of support and safety, design of erection rig and, above all, exactness in everything. Old Colonel, Chief Engineer, down some time ago when we the big steel trusses cantilevered out from each shore-- high above the river and ever building out to join the steel in the center of the channel. He at the work for some time and then to me and , "Ben, are you sure you everything right so those two great sections of the truss when they in the center?" I him, "Yes, Colonel, they all right. He said, "God help you if they ." Steel, of course, with heat and every degree of temperature some difference in a long bridge. I my expansion calculations on 65°F and then prayed for that temperature when we would close; otherwise, we might have some trouble making the connection. The morning we the last big chord closing the structure, the thermometer exactly 65° , and when the derrick the last big chord into place, it the gap exactly and the big massive pins fit their sockets as nicely as watchmakers' work. I like wiring the old Colonel "perfect fit" but didn't. I didn't expect and wouldn't want any praise for doing my work as I to do. The satisfaction of knowing that I that work well was the most pleasing reward. The bridge soon and there will be a grand celebration opening the bridge to traffic. The city "Dads" a big banquet for big railroad officials. President and chief engineer and other big officials will be there and there flowery speeches, but the brains and hands that the bridge there. I'll probably get an invitation, of course, but I'll be home with wife and kids and the poor boy who from the tower, I hope, in heaven. Well, Sis, I guess you are tired of all this bridge talk. Usually we a silent crew of bridge builders. The bridgemen-- rough, daring fellows-- but good men at heart, and I the confidence they in my engineering ability and judgment. It's a big grim game but fascinating. The stakes are high but away from it all and relaxed here in my room my thoughts just bubble over and you will just have to listen to, or rather read, it all. With love and best wishes to you, Mother and all, As ever, Ben |