Dear Folks:
Just after dinner I received two letters, one from each of you and now while I can take some time off this afternoon, perhaps I can take time to write a better letter. It’s a hot sun shiny day and now I have my shirt off. But when the sun goes behind a cloud, it cools off quickly. And the past two days have given the ground a good drying, making it much easier to move around.
You didn’t think much of your Nurses Aide picture but I think it’s alright, only it’s not so clear. At first I didn’t think so much of your idea of taking the training but now I feel proud that you are doing it. It makes me feel that you sense the war personally and want to do something about it. And you look young, more like a young girl.
Haven’t seen Dick lately but he is located quite a ways from me and it’s not easy, especially at this time to make connections. However I assure you he is having it easy, and is in little danger, and that is the straight stuff. Last night Jap planes were having a look around but I didn’t bother to take much interest, only when they get too close, or our own flak might fall on us do I get up. Most of the big air battles you read about, I can’t see, for they go on away from the island where our own planes won’t get hit by our ack-ack. The airmen are certainly getting a work out and I think they are doing a great job. I wished you could see and hear the Navy planes dive on Jap positions and let go with their rockets. The rockets make loud swush and explode with great concussion.
Speaking about Dick, I have gathered some plans for the postwar that I think are pretty good, but what I would like to have your opinion on. I haven’t spoken to him about them, but I’m anxious to tell him. As I’ve already told you my partner is acquainted with the fruit growing business and gets some expert advice from his father. Now he says I can buy good fruit land for $150 to $200 an acre, and I figured on getting ten acres. In addition to that we would need a small tractor and some spray equipment, plus cost of the trees. Now if I can raise enough money before the war is over I thought I would put down the capital and put Dick down there to tend it. According to Cliff it will be four years before the crop will begin to produce, but in the meantime he can grow a small bit of truck gardening to make some of the expenses. After five years he says a normal crop will yield from $2,500 to $3,000 in fruit. After the first starter there is little expense, as he says it takes little care to keep the orchard going. And Dick could also work for other people to offset some of the first year’s expense. He claims a good well kept orchard will bring from $12,000 to $15,000 in fifteen years. In the meantime I would take some other job and try to save to buy another little acreage. He is going to buy his dad’s 20 acres and build that up. His dad currently makes from $1,500 to $2,000 dollars on it, but it is less than half planted and doesn’t get the good care that the owner would give it. So I’ll have to see what I’ve got and what Dick’s got and try to work it out. I look at it as sort of an insurance policy – money invested now that will increase many times in a few years. He says that section is prosperous and the bare land is available, and he says his dad has had only one crop failure in 12 years. If perhaps when I got back I would go into your business and could gather some capital then he wants to go into a partnership and open a hardware store in the Rio Grande. We talked it all over, pro and con, for about three hours one night. If I don’t do something like this, I might spend the money normally without anything lasting. Well you ask what questions you may have and tell me what you think about it. I might even go back to school, no I couldn’t hardly do that. Well you talk it over.
I’m glad you think I can write a little and sometimes I feel like you that maybe I should consider it more carefully.
I think if I was in high school I wouldn’t vote for a South Seas theme for a banquet. Magazines and stories make the Pacific seem romantic (and) wonderful, and perhaps it is for a short time, but to me it means hot steaming islands with homely brown people running around. I wished you could have seen Eniwetok. I was there before I went to Saipan. It is a small atoll raising only a few feet from the water’s level. It is almost barren, and the sun beats down unmercifully on the white sand. It is hard to see from a distance, and seems to lie on the water level.
Well it’s getting around four-thirty and at five is chow, so I better plan on getting washed up a bit. After supper I intend to take a bath in the bucket, and put on some clean clothes and hope to get a good sleep tonight.
In the meantime I don’t want you to worry because before you know it I’ll be home, and then all these months will be forgotten and everything will be rosy again.
Love,
