Dear Folks:
I have wanted to write you all day and I hope this letter gets to you with all possible speed. I’m afraid my last two epistles didn’t sound too cheerful, and you may have thought I was quite the old grouch, and probably you felt a little bad about them, so I want to make amends for them and try to make you believe I didn’t mean all of it. I received two letters from you last night and they were such good ones that I felt like a two bit heel. So please attribute them to the mood I was in and not any kind of a criticism of you. I know how you feel and how you must worry and I shouldn’t do anything to make it worse for you, so accept my apologies, and believe me when I say I didn’t mean them.
Well today was sort of a red letter one. No, not furloughs or a big stack of mail or anything like that, just some fresh meat. A couple of ex-cowhands took a jeep and shot a young cow from one of the herds that run around here. They slaughtered it and got it ready and the cooks did a good job of turning out a real supper tonight – really hit the spot. If the spuds hadn’t been dehydrated it would have been perfect.
Saw the movie ‘Mr. Skeffington’ tonight and I thought it was superb. One of the best I have seen in a long time. No war or flag waving exhibitions, just a good peacetime cinema. I thought it was great and the moral behind it was very good. Bette Davis is tops in my book.
In Dad’s letter last night he said the souvenirs had arrived OK. Was the box broken up and was everything there? There are so many regulations connected with the mailing of souvenirs that I wondered if anything had happened to them. And don’t forget to mail me the clipping that Si Parker had about them.
And another bright spot on the calendar this week. For the first time since last May I had a coke. Yep, we were issued ten of them – I don’t know how long they will last – but I look on each one as a precious treasure and hate to drink one. Even though we can’t cool them very well they still taste pretty good. The beer situation is getting better and I think I have about six or seven cans left. Usually drink one every night just before the show.
Gee mom it sounds like you were pretty worried about me when I had the fever, but really it wasn’t as bad as I believe you imagined. It’s all over now and I feel fine again. As a matter of fact I feel better than I have for some time.
I can just visualize how much trouble you went to, to get Dick’s and my boxes ready and you don’t know how good it makes me feel to know that – well that’s just the kind of parents they are and whatever they would do for us they wouldn’t think it would be enough. As each month goes by I wake up a little more to the fact that you are both the best in the world, and then those inconsiderate things I used to do and the worries I caused for you come in my thoughts, and I wonder if I can ever show you all the respect and love you both deserve.
We haven’t received any second class mail in weeks so of course that means I don’t get the Free Press, so you be sure and throw in all those clippings – even the little ones about anybody I used to know. I suppose soon the mail will come rushing in like a broken dam and I’ll be reading for weeks to catch up. Of course the first class is coming regularly and in fine time. I’ll bet you’re really busy taking care of Dick’s and my letters, and I’ll bet you never wrote so much in your life – even love letters.
Shirley Carroll’s dilemma is indeed a sorry one, but it seems to be following a typical Carroll pattern. If it hadn’t have been this, it would have been something else. Perhaps she should have been more careful, although I do feel sorry for her and thought she would make out better than most of them.
The little mention of the fiddle is something I often think about, and I get a deep urge to play it again. Your ears must have been very sympathetic when I picked it up. And my gas models often put a curb in my daydreams. I’ve thought that after the war I would start in again as a hobby, and have a little more to do with (it).
Well the lights around the area are going out one by one and I seem to be one of the few left so maybe I better be thinking about hitting the hay. But be sure and pick out all the nice things in those sour letters and forget the bad ones. I guess we all get (into) moods and I don’t know what made me that way.
Love,
