Bridge (cards) Archives - Page 4 of 4

24 February 1943

Dearest Folks:

I just finished an erratic game of contract bridge and now before I and another day (go by), I’ll write you a few lines. I believe my game has improved considerably since I was home—at least I seem to be pretty good.

This would be an especially appropriate night for a Moss housewarming. It’s cold, dark, and gives a house that added cozy touch. I hope I never grow old enough to always want to sit in on another.

I had a letter from Mrs. Carroll today and one from Mrs. Lewellen a while back. I will answer them right away. I wrote Mrs. Peters sometime ago after I let it go for too long. I hardly knew what to say and hope that what I wrote was alright. Have not heard from Dick for some time. I can imagine quite how he feels and like you, I do hope that he hits it as lucky as I have.

I was a little surprised about your course but I had suspected that you would eventually do something. I only hope it doesn’t evolve into anything strenuous because it’s time you started on your fifty year rest.

The gal in the picture is one that entertained at our camp. [no picture was included in the envelope]

My letters are getting to be models of brevity and drabness because the day to day pattern is so routine that a letter has become a project.

Goodnite and remember that faith is a lot of ammunition.

Love,

18 February 1943

Dear Dad:

I received your typewritten V-mail today and to attest to my vow of early reply, here I come. Your letter was very interesting and I took a long time reading it. Your free style manner of detail and continuity add a punch of zest and life. Anyway I like ‘em bushels and you should write more often. In case you haven’t guessed, to write a lengthy and appealing letter over here is quite a task and often I quit in disgust. I hope you liked what I sent a while back but I think you will go more for what I sent yesterday. As a result I am on a precariously balanced budget for the rest of the month, but that is nothing new. And I had a great deal of satisfaction in sending them. I’m drawing seventy-nine bucks every thirty days now so I plan to increase my allotment to about thirty-five dollars. By the way I’m a corporal now. That’s where the extra dough is coming from. I hope the bonds have started to come regularly now. Tonight, or the forepart of it, was very unusual. For the first time in the Army I got into a bridge game and by a real stroke of luck came out on top. It was contract so I did more guessing than anything else. My partner and I worked together like a pistol and a wheel. Today two Free Presses came but I couldn’t figure out the handwriting on the wrapper. The Reader’s Digest also came. Since the latest postal regulations, mail has been slower and not so frequent but on the whole it is pretty good. Perhaps you wouldn’t think it would get very chilly here but I’m using an overcoat and raincoat along with three blankets. If I had a mattress it would seem much warmer though. In my estimation a bed is man’s best friend and when I get home I’m going to stretch in all four directions at one time. The war news seems to be changing color every day and I’m earnestly reviving hopes of a homecoming in early 1944. This is the end of the communiqué tonight. In a way I hate to stop but I couldn’t think of anything anyway. I’ll buy you a banana leaf hat for your garden this summer.

Love,

22 December 1942

Dearest Folks:

I have plenty of time this evening so here’s another dubious attempt at a letter. A poker game is going on nearby and it’s a temptation but have several letters to answer. I engage in the sport to some extent but not enough to imperial my finances. I had two letters today, one from you and one from Nancy. I seldom miss a day for letters unless there is no mail at all. Your letters arrive in pretty good time but often not in the order you write them, for instance the ones today were dated earlier than your last airmail. Censorship precludes giving the exact date, the theory being the enemy might be able to ascertain by schedules, our station. Yesterday the piece of wedding cake came. It was hard but I nibbled on it and ate the candy. The bells add a little to the adornment of my bunk. Also the Reader’s Digest came. There is an article in it called “Never Shoot An Hawaiian Twice”. I’ve heard the story over here several times.

I don’t know what I’m going to write about for news. I suppose you have the papers by now. This weeks (battalion newspaper) is out done up in a little fancy Xmas cover. I’ll send it. Gladys Davis has been writing regularly and gives me the dope on the guys that I lived with. I sure want to go back. If Congress passes the six month’s pay for the expiration perhaps it would be easier but anything may be a long shot now. Maybe I’m wrong but I believe after the war there will be many opportunities. With the organization and development that aircraft will undoubtedly realize, every country in the world will be open to development. Wait and see.

This is all I can dig up tonight. I can’t realize its Christmas but every time I hear a carol it beings back plenty.

Love,

2 November 1942

Dear Folks:

After reviewing two of your letters guess it is high time I took up my pen again. I think my mail is arriving okay—for many of yours have been received and hardly a mail call goes by without my getting at least one but then I never get enough to suit me. Gram is behind I believe. Perhaps if I scan over your letters, I can find something to write about. The news about Eilad Horshman is news—it was time she flew the coop though—or perhaps the coop never was much of a cage. Haven’t received the Free Press yet but they’ll get here. My tooth is yet unfixed although I had a dental appointment but it fell through. Believe they intend to pull it.

And the subscription is just the ticket—we subscribe to it but it isn’t always available and I like to read it through. I’ve answered the rest of the questions.

Tonight in the dayroom the radio is crashing on every table—there’s a game of pinochle going on, two or three books being read and plenty of letters being written and the smoke is like a blanket of clouds.

About this time every nite I turn over a leaf or two on an old memory album and look at each picture slowly and catch a glimpse of the privileges that made them possible. Guess I’ll stop with that.

Goodnite and a bomber load of love,

18 May 1942

Dear Folks:

Boy have I got a lot to time to write now. I’m in the hospital. Remember the infantiago I told you about well, it failed to clear up after about a month’s treatment so the battalion doctor decided to send me to a specialist. Hope I’m not cooped up here long or I think I’ll go nuts—just came in this morning and slept most of the afternoon and played rummy this evening. I thought the stuff was almost cleared up—just have a small spot below my lower lip and at the edge of my mouth, but the doc decided to do something about it. I’m in a skin clinic in a ward where there are many other cases of skin diseases of all kinds. The nurse just came in a few moments ago—a pip-and the boys all had humorous remarks to make. Already I wish I was back with the outfit. I feel so helpless or something and really nothing’s the matter with me. Hope I get out soon but in these army hospitals sometimes it’s hard to get out.

Well I’ll probably write tomorrow again to kill some time and give some personal reflection on army life. So till tomorrow.

Love,

10 April 1942

Dear Folks:

Suppose you will be surprised by the series of lots of letters but I’ve had so much time to do nothing that letter writing becomes a good recourse when the time drags.

Finished my tour of guard duty at Carlsbad so I’m back in Escondido. Two letters were waiting for me—one from each of you. When you send me a box again will you include a heavy bath towel and perhaps a couple of hankies? I know you will send a box as you always have so I just as well make my suggestions. Some other things—hair shampoo, whole peanuts, that’s just about everything. I’m as proud as pie over the sweater and hate to have to wear it underneath. I can wear it on the outside only on unofficial formations.

Guess I’ll dig up your letters and take care of your questions. First—the actual temperature doesn’t seem to get so low but somehow the nights are very chilly and invariably we wear jackets and overcoats on nite guard duty, and then we still get cold. Yes, I sleep in my sleeping bag every nite. I would freeze without it—or I feel like I would. Usually in the evening we have a fire going in our little cone shaped stove so it’s comfortable in the tents. In fact your Easter card and the letter about the suit—take your pick—and I also hope Dad is making use of them. When the day comes that I will be handed that precious little document inscribed with the word ‘discharged’ I am going to wear different clothes everyday just to see what it feels like. Now that I got to thinking about it, it will seem odd very different to get back into civilian life. I never realized the freedom and privileges that I enjoyed. Suppose you will for awhile have to wake me with a bugle, blow a horn for chow and give me an inspection on Saturdays. How good it will seem to be relieved of the regulations of uniformity that we all follow.

Last Wednesday got a letter from Gram inviting me to a Nebraska picnic at Long Beach. Dick, Loyd, and June are going but I’m tied up, of course, so can’t attend! It does no good to make plans for anything—take your liberty as it comes and make arrangements later. Last nite a group of women with the Women’s Club in Vista entertained about forty of the soldiers to a dance and games in their clubhouse. I became entangled in a good bridge game with three of the town’s solid (+ solid) women who rank with the sharks. Of course I’m not acquainted with all the intracies and opportunities of the game but we got along pretty good and they were very gracious about my ineptness. They hung on all my words and finally we both recalled someone we knew in Scottsbluff so we became very chummy.

Another Sabbath tomorrow which means pancakes (a rare treat) for breakfast and church later. Besides pancakes-I also saw a boiler full of chickens so suppose we will have chicken for dinner with some good mashed potatoes.

I don’t know any Hoover in my battery although he may be in another battery of the battalion.

I see Dad you mentioned something of going to Alliance to see the army pass threw. Well I suppose a uniform would cause a mild sensation back there but out here they are so commonplace they are never noticed. Everyday convoys of trucks for miles in length pass through the town and P-38 interceptors, bombers and fighters fly over incessantly. Searchlights cut swatches of whiteness in the nights, and boys sit in rooms of sandbags keeping accurate logs of every happening along the coast. Troop trains sweep along, blackened out like a deadly animal and the yellow light of an alert flashes on once in a while. Rumors fly like confetti in a March breeze and the next most important topic is dope about furloughs and passes and (of course) women. I wish you could visit our battery and see what we do. Each move a vital cog in a big war wheel.

Well this covers about all from this news front and perhaps a little to much space so until the next letter.

Love,

15 October 1941

Dear folks:

I’m riding on a train thru the desert just a little over the border of Arizona into California. I can imagine what you went thru when you drove. This morning stopped for 15 minutes in Needles. On either side are towering points of rock but here in bed there is nothing but a few bushes. It must be all of ninety-five or a hundred now. Yesterday crossed the highest point on any railroad in the United States, Canada, or Mexico. It took three engines to take us over the top (7,621 feet). At the top was a long tunnel. Something a little ironical is that yesterday in passing over the point we were in a furious snowstorm and today the sun is scorching us. Our train is made up of nine cars carrying three hundred and fifty men. Ahead of us is another carrying about the same number. Most of the time have been occupying my time playing bridge but read quite a little too. We have a Pullman but don’t have enough covers. We eat on our mess kits and a crew of men from the dining car bring the food thru in buckets and they dish it out. In the afternoon we get a little fruit and at night a box of cookies.

Close tab is kept on anyone getting sick. At several places we got out and marched thru the town and got most of the village out.

Yesterday in New Mexico passed thru several small Mexican villages parked in the pine covered foothills, that reminded me of a newsreel of a foreign country. Such squalor and decrepit looking shacks and boys looking wide-eyed from their unsaddled ponies. It was all very interesting and in many places the fall coloring of the hills was really beautiful. Recalled past days at Greeley.

We left Leavenworth at 6:30 last Monday nite and expect to arrive at [Camp] Roberts nine o’clock Thursday afternoon. I believe we will lay over about 2 hours in Los Angeles. By the way, this morning at Needles saw my first palm tree.

This is just a line to let you know how I’m getting on but will write more later.

Lots of love,