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Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
September 25, 1943

Dear Aunty Clara,

Friday

Well, well and double well again. I received four letters today. One dated the dated the 13th and two were dated the 14th. The fourth letter was from Eleanor Angsten. Quite a few fellows received letters today which had been damaged by the cutting machine but luckily the ones you sent to me were unscathed. Eleanor still doesn't write to me in V-mail although I had asked her to do so. She purposely wrote Air Mail thinking it would delay the news which it contained until such a time so it would be safe for me to hear it. It seemed that the Fates played their hand and the letter mailed on the 16th, took only eight days to arrive.

The heat is off on our work and for the first time in who knows how long, I have been able to do my own work my own way without the perennial "rush" tag attached to it. It is amazing how much odd and end work a clerk's desk can accumulate. Such things as typing up rosters, checking records for errors, cataloging various sorts of information and filing piled up correspondence.

I celebrated this new era by getting myself that long postponed haircut which would have normally been about two and a half weeks ago.

The movie is the same tonight as I showed last night at the other outfit so I will not go to the amphitheater at all. On Saturday evenings we have no special show in connection with the picture. I'm not going to give myself any agenda to follow because usually I never even make a dent in it; so all I'm going to try to do tonight is to see if I can't get around to dropping a few lines to several of my correspondents. I hope that wording didn't jinx it so that I'll end the evening without having written anything.

Eleanor gets a bit sarcastic with a few of the boys in her letter. For instance, she says that Eddie Schwab is giving his blood to the Red Cross and therefore, as far as he is concerned, is doing his bit for the war. In another spot she mentions Gary Walroth as being his same charming self. At another point in the letter that I should remain quiet like a mouse about something she tells me. This quiet like a mouse business comes from Robert Garrett who Eleanor sort of went for and he would use that expression at least once a day.

So along about the 13th and 14th you had a lot of mail, eh? It is about time some of the letters began coming thru. I wonder what holds some of them up so long. Like Aunty Florence's letter, for instance, should have gotten there much sooner than it did. In fact, it took so long you thought we had finally lost a letter. Either we are extremely lucky or other people exaggerate a great deal; for according to them at least one letter in five is lost somewhere in transit. In all the while Uncle Jack and I corresponded while he was in California and I was still home we only lost one letter which in itself was a remarkable record.

There was quite a bit to answer and comment on in your letter and as I am in one of those races with the chow line, I have not got around to them in this letter and will do so in the one I write this evening.

Tomorrow is Sunday but I am going to be down at the office working on different things and one of them is going to be a little cabinet for Jack and myself to keep the different type of paper and carbon which we use from day to day. We are going to fix it up underneath our desk so that it will be out of sight yet still convenient to have.

Company B has that pet goat and deer I was telling you about and they've named the little goat "Colonel". Sure enough, when called by that name it will turn around and look at you very comically. The sound a goat makes is a silly one and coming out of such a funny looking animal makes one smile every time it is passed. They keep it near the bridge going across a creek alongside of our mess halls where everyone gets a chance to see it during the course of the day.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman