Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
August 17, 1943
Dear Aunty Clara:
However, just because I didn't write you a letter before suppertime today does not mean that you will not get what has become a steady second letter of the day. Receiving three letters from you today will more than take care of this second letter because I will now answer those letters of yours.
Say, for a while there you were suddenly flooded with letters from me, eh? That mailman must wonder what goes on.
I am glad you tell me that you have received the allotment check each month because I say to myself "Good, she got the money". And it makes me feel better to know that everything is being taken care of. Incidentally, I'm glad we're saving money again because even if we do have a touch of inflation in our currency what we can put aside will still be better than having nothing at all. Maybe after the war we will need it for a rainy day or it will help us get a start somehow to earning more lettuce. Maybe it will eventually add up to buy those luxury items which are just dreams right now.
Why are they laying in a new car track on 22nd Street? Was the old one too humpy-dumpy to straighten out? And are they getting rid of the dirt in between the tracks by laying it in cement? The dirt road bed of the 22ndstreet car tracks acted as a safety device in preventing head on accidents of speeding cars and also protected the pedestrian who was caught between the flow of traffic.
It doesn't seem possible that I have only been to town three times since coming to this island. Schwartz, Co D Clerk, on the other hand, must know the place like a book by now for he has gone in at least once every week and sometimes twice a week. Even Robbin goes in every so often on either business or pleasure. Two of the times I was in town it was a business trip and only the very first trip in the evening was a pleasure jaunt.
No, you and Aunty Florence are all wrong. It was not me who was running away from the calf. I was one of the spectators of the event.
It is ten-thirty right now so I hardly think that I will be writing to anyone else this evening. I had intended to dash off a letter to Uncle Jack. Perhaps I can do that tomorrow. I think Uncle Jack will understand if my letter is rather hurried and unpolished. Do you know that it is very tempting to tear up my letters when I reread them. Not one of them satisfies me. Yet, what can I do? It is either send out those poor examples of my penmanship or send no letters at all for I know that I would never rewrite the thing once I tore it up.
Larry tells me that his wife is having trouble at the post office trying to send his packages when she uses the forms of request which he sent to her. Tell me, you haven't run into any such difficulty, have you? Just what procedure is involved? Does the post office keep the V-mail request or are they content to read it and return the letter. After all not everyone sends the request on a V-mail form exclusive of other words. In case of a request incorporated in the body of a letter, I hardly imagine the post office would demand that the entire letter be held as evidence.
I am continually hearing moans from Larry and Robbin that their wives do not get all the letters they send out nor are they themselves receiving all the letters their wives send to them. I think that they are full of prune juice and just do not have any decent way to note any omissions which might occur such as we have. I've never once heard Jack Molymeaux complain of any such difficulties between the correspondence with either his wife or mother.
So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman