Bridge (cards) Archives - Page 3 of 4

18 September 1943

Dear Folks:

If I don’t write soon you will think I have evaporated or something. The fact is, I am the same as ever except I forget to write as often as I should. But while I have failed to write, the situation has been good the other way. Yesterday a book from Gram came and that added a good deal of morale to my life. She had to send to Minnesota for it, but she got it. With the ones I have now I don’t worry about something to do in the evenings. If I should move or leave I will leave them with a civilian friend who can mail them to me. I suppose you have wondered what has happened to the razor I said I sent. Well after I had it wrapped ready to go there was the matter of rewrapping it after the censor was through with it. In the interim I started using it again so I still have it.

I haven’t been to a show in a couple of weeks so I think I will take the night off and see one, even if it is the corniest horse opera ever produced. The shows have been pretty fair lately but once in a while they throw in an old number and I mean old. In a short time ‘Macbeth’ on the stage will be on the island and I hope I will be lucky enough to see it. Tomorrow is another Sunday and I hope to go to town for services.

Two Free Presses came yesterday and they added the usual bright spot to the week. It’s really interesting to follow the hometown from a long viewpoint, and see where the fellows scatter out to. Geo Butler seems to be getting his share of the fighting from what he wrote. All those guys coming home on furlough kind of hit the soft spot, but I shouldn’t complain considering what some of them are putting up with.

I started this letter last night and now Sunday morning I’m still trying to finish it. What halted me last night was a bridge game, which for once was a winner. I’ve been wondering every day if I’m an uncle yet. I suppose I am by now. I’ve been waiting for a telegram or something.

This is pretty much of a flop for a letter but I guess it will fill in the gap until I can get a better one off. I’m always looking forward to the day when we can all get together again and forget all this mess that we’re in.

Love,

1 September 1943

Dear Folks:

Although I just wrote you last night I guess another letter won’t be wrong after I laid off for a while. After recall we usually manage a volleyball game with teams from the other offices, then follow it up with a shower before supper. Now that I have showered and ate, I feel pretty good and ready to relax or get in a bridge game tonight. With the abundance of avocadoes on the nearby trees we usually have one for dinner and supper, although I can’t remember ever eating one in the states. Well the school kids are starting school again and everyday the little Japs etc trapaise by on the road on the long walk home. They look about the same anywhere I guess. I saw a class of small children at the Catholic parochial school and what a variety of brands. From the whitest to the blackest and shades in between.

Tomorrow is my day off and while I’m in town I think I’ll have the photographer work on me. Perhaps I can make the pictures suffice for Christmas presents. My friend in Washington is sending me a book—she always writes regularly and I consider her a very close friend.

I hope my allotments are arriving regularly and in the right amounts. Being so far away from the War Department offices we have many cases of incorrect and delayed allotments and I wouldn’t want to have them get messed up. Handling these things, together with other personnel work is the job that I am in, and I think it is one of the most desirable jobs in the regiment.

My Reader’s Digest came yesterday but it immediately starts the rounds in the billet and so far I’ve just read the jokes and shorts.

And of course the first of the month is that day that we are rewarded for efforts, payday, so I suppose the dice and cards will see plenty of action tonight although our billet seldom gets away from the bridge games long enough to try their luck.

I guess I’m like everyone else in enjoying the Free Press and especially the comments about the servicemen. Now perhaps I can keep track of those monkeys that made high school and after, the clutter of mischief and fun that those years were. I think I’d rather see Bill Emick more than any other one fellow. I wonder when you were digging around among the stuff I left you, came across my old model planes. You know I get a hankering to get out a bottle of glue and wood and start on another one. I guess the gas model is pretty well beat up, but I wouldn’t be surprised if I someday patched it up again, even if my glasses are an inch thick.

I heard a broadcast of Winston Churchill’s speech from Canada last night and also the Pope’s today. It seems pretty certain that the culmination of the war is in the home stretch, and our turn to swing the final punch, but too much optimism is not good.

The mountains look beautiful in their purple robes as the sun goes down, and the ocean is deep blue and quiet, so I’ll get in this mood too and take it easy for the rest of the night. I guess this (is) goodnight and the end of another column.

Love,

19 August 1943

Dear Folks:

Again I’ve let the time go by without writing you as often as I should and I hope you haven’t worried about it. Part of it was on account of the book that just came—the one you sent. I was on a hike when it came and when we got back I didn’t feel so good but the sight of the package on my bunk made me forget my physical ailments. So since that day I have read it some every night and when I get going on it, neglect to write as I should. I can’t tell you exactly how good I felt about getting it or thanking you for sending it, but I know I’ll always hang on to it as a treasure. And then besides occupying myself with the book we have our bridge games that are rapidly developing into teams of severe competition. I think my game is improving but you can test that when I get home. And golf is something again that I indulge in occasionally. Although my rounds aren’t so frequent we usually manage a nine (hole) about once a week, with rented clubs. I can’t help but remember the times when I so assiduously tried to be a golfer on the hometown course that was really little more than a glorified pasture. The first time I played on the course here I must have looked like an unconscious duffer in the movies. Some of the fellows on the course play without shoes, as they do everything else, and recently the winner of a tournament was a barefooted fellow.

Probably I’m an uncle now and the sooner the better. It’s a good feeling to know that the Moss’ are still growing. Katie hasn’t written for quite a while but then I don’t expect her to, I just want to get an announcement.

I hope you had a good vacation full of a lot (of) leisure, for you certainly deserve one if anyone does, and I hope in the future that you will both have your full share. We were talking about Denver in the billet the other night and nice to have someone else familiar with the place as I am.

This was Sunday but nothing unusual or much to write about. And thinking of church on Sundays, I must repay a visit to the Sisters at the convent. It has been sometime since I was there, but even though they do insist, I hesitate, I suppose for no good reason. The Father is a Belgian, a hearty, witty fellow, with a guttural booming talk, that always makes you feel that you are his best friend. The Sisters, via the grapevine I guess, became aware that I torture the fiddle a little and always attempt to force a number but I remain obdurate. Occasionally I go borrow the violin, but with no privacy, I keep pretty well in check.

One of the fellows in the billet is taking an extension course in economics and with him studying his subject and myself usually reading the law book, we are almost ready to inaugurate a study period. I think the promotion you mentioned will be forthcoming, as a matter of fact, I think it may be even better than that, and although my patience grows thin at times, I guess that is a perquisite to all of them. I believe this is all I (can) scrape together tonight, and I will write again soon. Thanks again for the book and now I’m itching for the next one to arrive.

Love,

9 June 1943

Dearest Folks:

I just finished a good game of bridge after making a few blundering mistakes. You can imagine what kind of a player I am from the sessions we used to have but we have a good time and to make it a little more interesting put two bits on a rubber. Only twice during the game did we bid under two. I guess bridge games aren’t too interesting a subject to be writing about so I’ll get on (to) something else. I had a letter from Dick today and our negotiations for a meeting are progressing pretty favorably. From the tone of his letter he wanted to see me pretty bad and was trying to fix things up for a good visit. His whole letter had a greater feeling of softness than his usual style and mentioned how badly he would like to be home again. He also thought it was pretty swell about Kate going to have a baby, and he said to be sure to bring along a camera.

I had your letter with the clipping about Jim now being a lieutenant in the Air Corps. I always thought he was the best real friend I ever had and I’ll always look forward to meeting him again after the war. He looks about the same as ever in the picture, maybe looks a little older. I always like to hear about the guys, what they are doing and where they are and then thumb back to the days when we went around together. The war better end in a hurry I feel like I’m getting old and missing some good times.

Tomorrow is my day off but it will probably not be any different from the other pass days. I do go out about weekly with a gal that works in the hospital, but she is nothing to whistle about and she’s pretty dumb. Last Sunday our battery had a dance in a gym nearby and I did have (a) pretty good time although the ratio of guys to gals was about ten to one. Before the dance they ate with us in the mess hall which was papered up with streamers. We all preened up like Sunday School boys on children’s day and I really felt like one. Our own dance band in my opinion is very good so when I couldn’t dance I could listen to the music. One of the boys has a fiddle and occasionally I borrow it for a brief brush up but the privacy is practically nil which doesn’t mix with my modesty.

I should write several more letters tonight but I can’t make myself get going so I’ll probably end up going to bed early and putting them off another night. Well I hope that by the time you get this I will have seen Dick, so I’ll draw the curtain here.

Love,

The pictures are two attempts at the sunset.

13 May 1943

Dear Folks:

To answer your letter that came today and in better time than most, I am probably thinking of the same thing that you are tonight and that is how soon I can see Dick. I wrote to him a few days ago but so far haven’t received a reply. There is no use in telling you how much I’m chaffing because I can’t see him right away. I was thinking the other night (of) how many letters you have to write and how busy you must be to keep up with our demands. Probably you have written more the last two years than in your lifetime. I’m really glad to know that you bought the Buxby(?) house and nothing must ever make us give it up. Asking me the other night about being a bachelor, that reminds me of the dream I had last night. I was spending my money for house furnishings (in) prepatory to getting married. Quite a pleasing dream but seemed a long way from reality.

You said in one of your letters a while back that you had some negatives of Dan and Carol. I would like to have one of their pictures very much. Last night I played bridge but it was a bad session. Tonight there’s a fellow sitting opposite me slapping a guitar with great gusts but not so bad, so perhaps my tastes are depreciating. Tonight I borrowed a fiddle for a few minutes but it had such a dull flattened tone that I returned it soon. I even felt a little sentimental, recalling the first day I stood with nine others and began my lessons, and then remembering further the symphony at Nebraska and the brief luck I had at forceful and sensuous music. I guess this is the end of another episode. I’m afraid the cable arrived too late for your big day but I hope it conveyed some of my thoughts of you.

Love,

10 April 1943

Dearest Folks:

Just finished a losing game of bridge and now feeling cozy and comfortable in the chilly night air. I will look forward with a inner relief when Saturday night rolls around although the days are all the same. Katie had written me about my new title of uncle and of course I was really surprised, but at the same time glad to hear it and know that I will have someone new to meet. It hardly seems real that she will be a mother and you a grandmother when I recall our petty squabbles that made so many memories and makes a family happy. All these years seem to have gone by like a flash of light although they would never end at the time. The poorer news was Dick’s new move but perhaps by some chance he will be transferred to the islands. If he should be, I believe we could arrange a meeting. A few days ago I mailed you a bond and about a dozen photographs. I hear Wylma is working in Denver, in fact, I write to her often. I guess it’s goodbye for tonight and I do my share of the praying too.

Love,

31 March 1943

Dearest Folks:

I had been wanting to write you for two nights but at both times something interrupted my schedule, now perhaps I can get the letter written. Yesterday I had some different and delightful experiences and at the same time got rid of some of the sluggishness I am developing behind a typewriter. Yesterday was pass day and instead of following the usual routine of passing a monotonous day at a show I took a hike and finally ended my itinerary at a convent. Together with a fellow from New York, we talked the cook into throwing together a makeshift lunch of two sandwiches and two tomatoes, then put on our ‘elephant hats’ and loaded with plenty of film, started on a foot inspection of the island or what we could see of it in a day. We started from camp and walked through fields of blue and white morning glories and grass shoulder high, and groves of tall, straight eucalyptus. The dew was heavy on the grass and we (were) drenched and tired when we finally reached a highway but nevertheless ready to tackle another field. After about a half an hour’s walk and talk, together with a few snapshots, we came across an Hawaiian community that adjoins a ranch….this is inextricably a part of the island’s history and development.

If you have made reference to “Born in Paradise” you can visualize much better where we were. Walking on further we came upon the ranch with its large layout of stables, corrals, buildings and beautiful horses. I saw the ‘Paniolos’ and their characteristic joviality that Miss Von Tempski so often wrote about. As I saw all this it didn’t take but a meager amount of imagination to feel the color of the old ‘Laus’ and festivities that must have been so colorful and unique. Surrounding the ranch home was a broad expanse of lawn ornamented by dreamy willow trees, shrubs and hedges of brilliant orange flowers. Together with the old touch there is the new with the concrete drives, lawn lights and automobiles. We took a lot of pictures and glamorized them as much as we could for our amateurish abilities. I hope they develop fairly well. Finally we had to leave this place, so we choose a quiet tree shaded road and started to look for the Von Tempski home that was built for them after her father gave up managing the ranch. While we were walking along gazing in all directions like a couple of immature ostriches, a person cantered by who said hello in a woman’s voice and kept on going. The person was dressed in dungarees and was riding a lively, wiry sorrel. We had an idea it was Miss Von Tempski and felt sorry for ourselves because we weren’t able to meet her. About a mile further she came by again, but this time stopped long enough to ask us if we were making an inspection tour, so that was the chance we wanted. We introduced ourselves and she returned, then after a few brief words she rode off again. She is not the author but a younger sister. Finally we came to her home and like a couple of burglars walked into the yard and looked around like a couple of FBI men. We took several pictures and marveled at the natural beauty, the broad rolling lawn and exquisite flowers. About this time it was getting dinnertime so we sat down with our backs against a log and took the lunch from under my helmet and took our time eating. During the afternoon we kept on walking and finally at suppertime, ended up at the Catholic convent where we were invited to supper. I had a few qualms about going in after my observations of the nuns and their straight-laced manners, however my companion knew them well and was a regular visitor so he promised to stand by me all the time. I became more at ease and even helped me cook supper and wash dishes. I was a little taken aback by their good humor and consideration and interest. Finally I was at complete ease with them and we were slinging sarcastic comments the rest of the evening. The meal was the best since I left home. After supper I played Chinese checkers with Mother Superior who kept the game lively with her witty remarks and good-humored excuses for losing the first round. She is a very good player and plenty hard to beat. She is very kind but you can never get the best of her in an argument. Later we played bridge and I soon found out I was playing with someone who really knew the game. Sister Jerome was my partner and she kept us ahead all the time. She was well up on the modern slang and knows baseball like Joe MacCarthy. After it was all over with, I made a quick turnabout on my impressions of Sisters and especially the ones I met tonight. They are completely human and could take any amount of ribbing. Before supper we helped them correct English papers and it was a big kick to see some of the interpretations of the comparison of adjectives that the kids with the screwy names thought were right.

Well this ended my day and it was a full and worthwhile one. I hope the pictures I took will give you a better idea of what happened.

The Free Press came yesterday but it didn’t take me more than ten minutes to read it although I haven’t thrown it away yet. Dan seems to be getting a lot of orchids from the women. Had a letter from Dick today after quite a delay and I will answer it right away. I guess this is finis for tonight, but I will never let go as you say ‘Mom might regret later’. I’m not homesick; it is just a deep yearning—but the longer I’m away the more I will appreciate the place I left.

Goodnight and I really hate to say it.

Love,

26 March 1943

Dearest Folks:

I have just finished cleaning up for inspection tomorrow and now perhaps I can write you a something of words before I go to bed. I’m glad you received the things and that you really liked them. I will send the hat in a few days and can get a box made for it. I was interested in your bridge game. We play considerable but we lack plenty of know-how and technique. Besides the movies that is almost the only thing I do in the evenings. I have been listening to the radio for some time tonight. Kate Smith and now Al Jolson and Monte Washington, the radio is pretty moody and to hear it without a lot of interruption is pretty relaxing. I had a nice letter from Gram last week-very sweet. I will answer it tonight.

Next week I plan to grab my camera and hike into the hills and see some things I have been wanting to see for a long time.

I guess I will exit for now—not much of a letter. I think about you all the time and more and more things crop up that reveal so many memories also. Will never forget.

Love,

20 March 1943

Dearest Dad:

It’s high time I sat down and once again wrote you a letter. I received yours a couple of days ago and I believe it was the only one during the week.

This is Saturday night. Although it’s been many weekends since I’ve enjoyed a civilian weekend, I was especially reminiscent on the subject tonight. I listened to The Hit Parade and some dance music and that helped recall those lost day of follies. Right now Fred Allen is on and it is always a marvel to me that both of us can listen to the same program. In a loose sort of a way it forms a feeling of nearness.

Next month I hope that I can have a few photographs taken. Good photographers are not in abundance but their work is acceptable. They are all Japanese, who all seem to possess a curious mania for cameras.

The bridge foursome got together again tonight and it was a successful session for me. We just finished a few minutes ago. I believe I am improving regardless of the dubious tutelage.

I hope that you have received the knick-knacks by now and it was too bad they couldn’t be there for Mom’s birthday. I am doing considerable reading and it seems that I can never read enough. There is such an infetertmable number of articles in my brain and the resulting consciousness of my inadequacy is very depressing.

Well I’ve come to the end of another very brief letter. Physically I’m very well and have not been on sick call since being on the islands. For all I think of you I should be able to write more and I do hate to stop. I’ll write tomorrow. A million times I’ve gone over the first day when I get home.

Love,

17 March 1943

Dearest Folks:

While I’m loafing before I go to bed, I (might) just as well apply my time to a better use, and make up for some letters I never wrote. I just listened to Harry James and had intended to get into another bridge game that is rapidly developing into a mania, but which was dispensed with tonight because of the absence of one of the foursome. I cut the clipping from the GI sheet that is published weekly. Of course I don’t write for it any more since I was transferred to this battery. The usual stake is two bits a rubber, and my fortune has been diminished by a buck already.

I believe I told you before that I had raised my allotment to thirty-five dollars effective March 1. However, it will probably be July 1 before the additional amounts will reach you. (This is surely a poor job of typing, but this is a poor machine and not the one I regularly use.)

As is usual at about this stage of my letter I am stuck for anything more to write. I know my letters are getting to be very brief and irritatingly drab but I do the same thing everyday and see the same sights. Maybe I could tell you about the visit I had with some Hawaiian people about two weeks ago. Their home is not far from camp and sits atop a small hill at the back of a two acre lawn, and surrounded on both sides by carnations, hibiscus, nasturtiums, ferns and a dozen more varieties that in my estimation are much prettier than orchids or carnations. We were invited in with a volume of welcoming words and immediately Eddie was telling us of the history and development of the islands. Eddie is strictly a Hawaiian gaucho or Paniolo and was taken into the family many years ago when he was getting to be the island incorrigible. His adopter made him his chauffeur while he campaigned around the island and went to Honolulu to the Senate. In this way he developed his flare for politics and when the old man died, succeeded in getting himself elected as a District supervisor. Now together with the old man’s widow he attends to his estate and manages her affairs. From what Eddie told us a campaigning in the old days of the Hawaiians was more of a vacation and one prolonged fiesta than a job of backslapping and high sounding promises. Every where they went the people prepared a ‘’luau’ of poi, squid, oranges, pork, wild turkey, showered them with leis and put on a big hula. Then they would sit up all night and in Hawaiian unravel stories of the past so full of pageantry and tradition. And Eddie said they would never return without a much loved fishing trip in the outriggers. All this he tells in an amusing and pidgin sort of English. All that he talked about I could never remember but one subject was the hog hunts that are full of sport and plenty of danger. Sometimes horses are used but more often they are tracked on foot. His many individual experiences are full of color and I could easily have listened to him all night.

Later, as I noticed and remarked about the furniture, he began to go into detail on the home. All the furnishings are hand carved of native Koa, a very hardwood with a beautiful grain and that will resist termites and retain a high polish almost indefinitely. What caught my eye was a model of a Hawaiian rigger that could easily bring up imaginations of long voyages of singing natives and golden moons. Anyway, we stayed as long as we dared while he kept going on about famous people who visited there, and his trip to the mountains and his first voyage to San Francisco on a cattle boat that produced some very comical episodes of his greenness in a big city. Finally we had an ice cold drink of passion fruit, and believe it or not, peanut butter cookies exactly the way you used to make them. I hope you will read the book I referred you to. I’m sure you will like it.

It is really getting on into the hours and I don’t want to keep anybody awake on my account. I will write you tomorrow night and tell you more of my visit in another letter.

Love,

Untitled Article by Emmett Cahill Taken from a Weekly GI Newspaper

Fred Lusiak has the answer to the barbed wire barricades which were placed before the entrance to the area recently. According to “Lucy” they were placed there by 1^st Sgt. Gerry Staerker to keep out the shoeshine boys.

Last week’s item relative to Sgt. Fred Puntoriero managing two dates at one time was challenged by the sergeant. We make corrections herewith. In our opinion it wasn’t two dates, it was three of them. He only managed to get by with the first two. The third one caught up with him. Sgt. Harker Chapman also resented being involved. So we hereby release him from any commitments on the part of the press.

At present Chappie is having trouble of his own, what with having told good many girls on the Mainland the same thing. His incoming letters, tinted with perfume, are written on asbestos paper. “I’ve got enough foreign entanglements without you complicating matters,” grumbled the sergeant.

Wanted. One Philadelphia lawyer to untangle them.

Tommy Lynch is carrying out his own obstacle course. In full field regalia Tommy was found in a slit trench, clawing and scraping at the sides, and in not too happy a frame of mind. We understand clearly how the men are found in the slit trenches at night, but when it happens in a cold, calculating light of day, well. In quite another mood Tommy also received a ride home from town last week, but details are not for publication according to Tommy Archer, Lynch’s press agent.

SOCIAL NOTES: Sgt. Gil Fruehaf returned from a three day business trip to town laden with photographic supplies and a resolve to return that city to the Indians.

Sgt. (we mean Master Sergeant) Nick Zona is the proud papa of two pigeons. Doves and daddy are doing well. The Big Bridge Four-Corporal Moss, Blount, Linsey, and Funk announce that they will gladly give, or take, bridge lessons every evening from twilight til taps. Call at Billet Nine for further details. We also suggest you bring your own cards, rifle and helmet.