Dear Dad:
I just received another of your inimitable letters and it came at a most welcome time. My head is still going round like a merry go round. I have been very busy the last few days and just now has the volume of work begun to slacken off a little. But working like this makes the time slip by almost unnoticed. When I realize how long it has been since I’ve eaten a Moss meal, I appreciate that fact, more than ever. But maybe that’s because I’m older. I can remember when I couldn’t wait another day until I was old enough to have a bike and then later on to drive an automobile. But now here I am having gone through both and wondering what I’ll be doing when I’m forty or fifty.
I think if I take another look at your letter I can stretch this one out a little longer. Every time you say something about the cold weather and the snow, I have to pause and remember that in some places there actually is weather like that. Every afternoon around three the office knocks off for a little volleyball game on the big rambling lawns that are near our area. We’re getting pretty brown from it and we feel pretty good after sitting down all day. Last night we gathered together our best forces and had a game with some Hawaiian civilian boys and took a good beating. We played after supper with the little gathering there. It reminded me of a twilight softball game like we used to have. There was a few good-sized ‘wahines’ there together with some men playing poker on a little grass mat. They sure take life easy and are so darned good natured and hospitable. They’re pretty fat and look sloppy but you overlook that. The boys beat our pants off – they can hit a ball from any angle.
Dick and I went out together on pass last Wednesday and looked around for the shells but couldn’t find any this trip. But we’ll get them. I bought Mom and Nancy each one of those handkerchief affairs they wear over their heads and better get them mailed tonight. Dick and I are very lucky to be so near to each other but I think your summarizations are pretty correct. What did you think of the Marshalls episode? Boosts your morale up for a while and makes you a little more optimistic. There is a lot of talk around in the papers of troop rotation and furloughs but I don’t put much faith in any of it. All of it is so contingent upon other things that is seems pretty remote. Guess I’m getting used to waiting. I know what the deal on the bond allotment is. I had an allotment for that amount and it was automatically stopped in favor of a new plan so that represents the money not applied on a new bond. Hope you received the sixty bucks instead of the usual thirty-five.
Most of the civilians at home get a pretty good tongue lashing from the fellows – and especially the strikers. Boy what they wouldn’t do for them. I guess that shows that they didn’t realize what a swell place the ‘old country’ was until they had to leave it. Any little old corner of the states would satisfy most of us. But this business of laying off work sure raises the hair on us when we hear of another fifty thousand or so because they can’t get enough to have all they want. I think the situation is pretty lopsided too. Everyone whether he’s over here or back there is in the same kind of job and if he has to take bad breaks that’s just tough.
Well I’m going to do some studying for a while and the evenings are very short so I’m going to throw in the towel about here. The friend in Washington sent me another book a few weeks back and it’s full of interest so got to get busy on it. I have a little room by myself now and can setup books and spend a profitable evening with them. I think your sentiments are the best in the world although they aren’t expressed in the language of Longfellow, which is the least important part.
Love,
