Fresh fruit Archives - Moss Letters

8 October 1943

Dear Folks:

First off I am in receipt of the letter about Stephen and besides being a big relief I’m sort of proud of my new title of uncle. I hope Katie gets along alright and the baby gets fatter and louder. Well, being away at a time like this is another good reason for my hating the Japs. I can’t very well imagine Katie with a baby in her arms and now I’m the more curious to see Tom.

And secondly (I have to enumerate the things I’m going to say in my mind) our battery stepped out to a dance last night. It was the second such battery dance since I’ve been here and this one was a big success. The boys spent a lot of time getting the hall ready and taking care of miscellaneous ends and they did a great job. And the biggest problem, the matter of getting enough girls, was even solved successfully. I ran into three Chinese girls whose names were Miss Chan, Chang and Ching (to give you an idea of the company I was in). I had a swell time besides eating cake and drinking coke all night.

Now that I have covered these few points I was going to write about I don’t (know) where I’ll go from here. Tonight was the weekly concert attended by a few civilians including a couple of stuffed dowagers who did more talking than listening. Listening to the concert we usually sit under a big avocado tree and the falling avocadoes are sometimes dangerous, and ripe mangoes literally cover the ground.

Of course every morning we like millions of others listen to the World Series game that begin over here at seven forty-five. And by the way, I’m still a Yankee man.

My job seems to keep me very busy and sometimes it gets a little monotonous but as I said before, it’s a good job and attended with a few advantages. One of the battery clerks was formerly from Omaha and occasionally we can recall something that was familiar to us both. And another of the clerks is a colored boy from Harlem. But the evenings are never long enough and it seems that something comes along about every night to keep me from studying as much as I would like to. Lights are out at nine-thirty which makes time pretty short. I think the boys are about as news minded as any in the outfit and we have our billet wall papered with battle maps to follow the communiqués closely. Of course we do a lot of talking about the progress of the war and not infrequently about the aftermath and what to expect when we come home. Sometimes I get a little depressed about it and wonder if I will ever attain what I started in school. But I cannot put (it) effectively on paper as I think about it so that’s enough of that.

Before I close I want to repeat about how happy I am for Kate and Tom and how much I wish I could see all three of them.

Well let’s call this quits—

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,

26 January 1943

Dear Folks:

It wasn’t a half hour ago that I finished a letter to you but it wasn’t enough to dissolve my guilty conscience completely so I’m back at it again. I have a few pictures that you can keep on record until I get back. The picture of me jumping into the pools lacks plenty of the glamour side but the guy caught it just right and when I wasn’t expecting it. The building is the bathhouse and the panoramic views are of the ball field adjacent to the pool. The place is much prettier than pictures. It doesn’t show the broad lawn or the flowered hedges, nor the clouds over the hills. The place I am at now is more suitable to my palate if you will recall my favoritism for fruit. Here in camp are avocadoes, oranges, limes, pineapple, papayas, and many banana trees and probably more that I have forgotten.

I went to the show tonight and saw a newsreel antedated to October or so. But the picture was good and the mosquitoes were hungry. “King’s Row” is currently showing and I don’t want to miss it.

I know these two letters won’t suffice for my negligence but I’ll double up on the next week and hope that the tray will please you.

I never go to bed without thinking about you and realizing what I failed to appreciate. Every time I see a lady with four or five jewels getting on a bus I can see you ten years ago.

Love,

22 July 1942

Dear Folks:

Time to write another letter while I’m goldbricking and while there is still some semblance of coolness in the air. Next Tuesday, a week from today we will be back in Fort Lewis and that won’t be too soon for me. Last Saturday and Sunday was in Yakima and had a good time getting my fill of dancing and good time. The place is about like Scottsbluff with eight some thousand people. There are plenty of places to go(to) and nice parks to go to. Also went to the Episcopal church, typical of most, covered with foliage and made of brick. Next Sunday and Saturday afternoon thinking of going berry or fruit picking. There is a shortage of workers so the soldiers are making up parties and picking in their spare time. Six thousand went out from Ft. Lewis last Sunday and there will probably be more this weekend.

Had a little excitement last nite when a seven foot rattlesnake attempted to share a fellow’s sleeping bag with him.

There are rumors that when our outfit returns to Lewis the cadre is going to Oregon and the outfit back to California. No word about furloughs. This morning we got a letter from an irate Montanan father who requested his son be granted a 30 day furlough. Of course it was turned down—impossible now.

Yesterday was a day of excitement and a little tragedy. It seems that C battery is a jinx for hard luck. Yesterday afternoon two cooks were burned, one seriously, when a unit in the stove blew up and sprayed gasoline all over the truck and the whole kitchen. The orderly tent is just a few yards from it and when it blew up we heard it first. Both cooks jumped off the truck screaming hysterically and flaming like torches. We threw blankets around them and rushed them to the doctor. Last nite and today one was given blood transfusions. The one most seriously burned happens to live in Yakima and can be with his folks. Before we got him out, two of his ribs were sticking out. That’s the first time I ever saw anyone so seriously burned and I was plenty jittery.

Later in the day we went swimming and when we got back we had to fight a prairie fire that was headed for the camp. The dust and smoke was so thick I could hardly breathe and it was one o’clock a.m. before I got to bed. The whole camp was there with trucks and graders and sprinklers and it was a great holocaust of excitement. Jeeps were tearing around like mad hens and bugles were blowing somewhere in the dust.

Guess this is enough for this time—going to a USO dance tonight if nothing else happens.

Some Red Cross women came around this morning with a station wagon full of cookies to put in our lunches. They wanted to see the stoves and help make the sandwiches so they pitched in. One lady went for a jeep ride and bounced all over the seat. We gave them about ten pounds of sugar and some grease.

Well see you in the next letter.

Love,

8 July 1942

Dear Folks:

It’s about seven o’clock and I’ve just finished shaving and sprucing a bit and I feel pretty good so I’ll answer your letter of today and Saturday. Suppose the main topic is the fourth of July celebration. We were granted passes all day Saturday and Sunday and it seemed like a furlough. A bunch of us left about nine o’clock Saturday and went into Yakima about five miles. On the way in we were picked up by an old couple who were herding a dilapidated fruit truck of about ’26 vintage and before we had gone far the whole back end looked like flies on a molasses jar. Our first sergeant and his wife live in Yakima and previously he had invited some of us over, so we went there. I appreciate a bathtub all the more now because when we got there his wife had eight cases of beer frosted down by two hundred pounds of ice. We did it up in big style singing and carrying on. In the evening five of us got a hotel room then took in some dances. Yakima is certainly a pretty town, trees all over and many beautiful homes. And the people appear very friendly. Stayed in bed til Sunday noon then went to a show and came back 5:00 Monday morning. A swell weekend.

The country around here reminds me of the Platte Valley in many ways. From our camp site we get a good view of the checkered green fields and orchards but up on the hills on either side it is dry and barren. Our camp in relation to Minatare would be about three or four miles beyond Lake Minatare.

I’ll dig up your letter and answer some questions now. The first item—my money situation is good. We were paid the third and I had about $35.00 left after bonds and laundry cleaning were taken out. As a matter of fact we get better food here than at the Fort, plenty of salads, fruit, and fresh meat. Tonite for supper we had roast duck and Sunday turkey (I wasn’t here). When we first came I drank water constantly but now my consumption is about normal. At every meal we are given salt tablets and our food has an abnormal amount. We haul the water from the water tower and drink it from a lister bag supported on a tripod. Yes the cadre is still going I believe after we leave here, which is two weeks after this one, July 25. And we are five or six miles from Yakima. Some guy shuttles a bus back and forth but usually we get a taxi for thirty-five cents. I got the picture of you and Kate and I remarked about it most graciously in one of my letters. Perhaps you didn’t get one of mine. Don’t go out of your way for the cookies, I forgot about the sugar rationing. You said something about watermelon in your letter—well I went to a restaurant and ate plenty and everything else I liked. Furloughs still seem in the offing—an outfit that just left here in our division are on them now so it is told. Only fifteen days though.

Our holiday was marred by a tragic incident Saturday afternoon. A big strapping fellow from Missouri with a pleasing sublimity of the hill country drowned in the canal I told you about. The canal is V-shaped lined with cement and about ten or twelve feet deep and the only place where a fellow can get out is at ladders at about ½ mile intervals. The current is so swift that if you get beyond the ladder it is impossible to get out. The last time I was there another of our men almost went down and it took all of us to get him out. Consequently swimming is strictly verboten there but the battery furnishes us a truck every nite to go to the river. C battery is certainly getting the bad breaks. Last January a fellow was shot on guard duty and now this. The skipper (battery commander) took it very hard.

I actually feel better out here and have much more endurance. The heat is pretty depressing at times but it has been cooler the last couple of days. I’ve lost five pounds though.

Tell Quincy I’ll write her tomorrow.

Guess this is about all for this time—perhaps when I feel a little more literary bent, I can write that letter for the Herald. Wish I could see your new home and take advantage of your sleeping offer. Maybe next month, who knows. Say hello to Jim for me.

Love,

I haven’t heard from Wylma since last March 1^st.

2 July 1942

Dear Folks:

To keep my mind off the heat and look a little more ambitious I’ll write you something of what’s been cooking. Well this is the third day we’ve been here but it seems like thirty days. Day before yesterday it was a hundred and fifteen and yesterday one (hundred) eighteen and it seems even hotter today without any breeze at all. The heat just seems to bounce off the ground into your face. Yesterday I was on KP and just about cooked trying to wash dishes and wipe off the sweat at the same time. We do get a little relief in the evening though. Two miles across the hills is an irrigation canal and a river so we usually hike over there to cool off a bit. Every night the bank looks like a bunch of flies on a piece of bacon. No bathing suits of course.

The latest rumor, seemingly well founded, is that we will get furloughs in August after we get out of this hell hole. I hope this is the straight dope and I’m inclined to think it is. Of course I’ll let you know if we get any definite word. That’s not very far off and will that be a treat. Come to think of it in two months I will have been almost a year without a furlough. We should be here in Yakima for only about four weeks if we pass our test, which this little excursion is intended for. If we don’t pass it and have to go through another month I believe I’ll go completely berserk. It’s almost impossible to stay out in the heat for any length of time. I’ve dispensed with all underwear except when I get a pass and wear my cotton uniform. If I’m not on duty Saturday or Sunday I’m going into Yakima and spend the afternoon of the fourth swimming and cooling off. It doesn’t seem possible that the fourth is so near. We get off from twelve noon Saturday until midnight Sunday nite, if we don’t get a damned alert, as they usually do over a holiday. Every nite the canteen tent looks like a bunch of ants going into their hill as the boys file in for a drink of beer or pop. Last night the battery next to us furnished free beer for the boys after they got in from the field. We get it for a dime a bottle, but it’s pretty weak.

One thing I sleep like a baby at nights, and this morning I didn’t even hear first call, as I usually do a half before time. The sun rises about five and most are dressed before reveille ever blows. I slept on the top of my bag in the raw till about one when it began to get chilly. It starts to get hot about six thirty and stays like that until nine or after.

We have good mail service here, as good as the Fort, so don’t worry about mail getting to me. I guess this is about all. We have good eats and a lot of fruit that appeals to me; cantaloupe, tomatoes, bananas, strawberries and a lot of salads.

Well so long for another time.

Love,

18 March 1942

Dear folks:

I have plenty of free time while I’m waiting to take my guard tour so I can catch up on any back correspondence. Today the battery begins its tour of battalion guards which will last a week so that will mean no going out for awhile anyway. Walking four hours and sleeping eight for six days gets pretty old stuff but we will get a 24 hour pass when it is over.

Last weekend I had another pass so left about four o’clock for San Diego and the folks. I was there in time for supper. When I got there Dick was sleeping on the couch and Gram was in the kitchen and I walked in and had my soaking clothes off before they knew I was around. Boy was it raining! In the evening Dick and I went to a dance. The next morning Gram, Dick and I went to church and in the afternoon we played 18 holes of golf. The Johnson’s (Mrs. E. Johnson and Helen) were there when we got back. I missed the last bus to Escondido but had no trouble hitch-hiking the 35 miles back.

I hope to get down again a week from this coming Saturday. Dick is really swell and we had a great time.

Well the war goes on and on and everyday I wonder what will happen next. This morning at reveille formation a circular about pay allotments was read. It said that all men in eminent prospect of being shipped should consider allotting so much of their pay to dependents or to their family. I think I will do this.

You say men are enlisting everyday, yes that is true, what I mean is that any man already in one branch of the service cannot enlist or reenlist in another, which means because I am in the FA I cannot transfer to the Air Corps (except flying cadets), Intelligence, or any other branch. Right now I’m hoping to get a chance at a commission in the FA as a clerk of some kind. I have applied for an application and believe my background of ROTC and college and banking will swing it. It is as an officer in the Adjutant General’s office. Each candidate is interviewed before a board of officers and graded on appearance, bearing etc, and I hope I can get over this hurdle if the chance comes for me. In my army intelligence test I scored 132 out of 150 and only 116 is required for an officer, and 100 for the Air Corps. That’s a pretty good rating.

The weather has been so sunny and the sky so clear, except for the rain last weekend. I suppose you noticed when you were here how big and bright the stars were. I can’t get over it. Suppose you know Palomar, with the telescope, is only 18 miles from here.

Well finished ‘Kabloona’ and ‘Mantrap’. Kabloona was sure a good one, so descriptive and such a study of values and the real worth of our ‘civilization’. When the war is over I’m going on a trip like that.

The oranges are pretty plentiful now and the other day when we were in an orange grove with the gems we all had our fill. Also lemons.

Patsy sent me another box of candy yesterday so I’ll have to answer and thank her. Gramma also sent a box of fruit, and cigarettes and cupcakes.

Well so much for another letter. I got all the Free Presses so I know about everything in Minatare.

See you in the next letters.

Love,