Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
29 October 1943
Dear Aunty Clara,
Friday
I hit the jackpot once again today and am now ten up on Jack Molyneaux for the week. Much of it is due to your writing me two letters on both the 18th and the 19th. I received five letters this noon. Two were from you dated the 19th, two were from Marie Volenec and one was from Anita.
In your second letter you mention many of the things which Anita tells me in her letter. You were right about Anita getting a kick out of that one line letter. It is a good thing that the follow up came shortly afterwards or else that would have been the end of a beautiful friendship.
I stayed up to twelve o'clock last night to write Uncle Jack a letter. So far so good, I've answered to Christmas packages or presents with a promptness which has even amazed me. Let's hope I can keep it up for the rest of them. By the way, to read of all these packages now on the way, I'm going to be deluged with them. It reminds me of the days back in Oregon when every Sunday or Monday I received a package of either cookies, candies or dates from you.
In today's letter you wrote out Ja-Ja's name in Polish as being Dzia-Dzia. At first I didn't recognize it until I discovered the pronunciation was identical to my way of spelling it. Is that the correct way? And this oplatki business. Whatever it is, I hope it tastes good. Perhaps Lt Podelwitz, our censor, will help me break the wafer with me on Christmas Eve because he is Polish and seems to know quite a bit about the language and the customs.
Say, if you have to build a new fire in the dining room stove every four days because of an accumulation of clinkers, it is going to be very inconvenient. And having to outen the fire and begin a new one so often will chill the house quite a bit too. It makes me shiver just to think about having a dead stove when it is below zero outside.
There should be some way you could find a dependable hospitalization plan other than just picking one out of the newspaper ads. Maybe Uncle Jack could write for the literature on the various ones and then pick out what seems to be the best and most reliable one of the bunch.
The mail is still coming into the regiment in unbelievable numbers. Yesterday's 36 sacks seems to be dwarfed by today's supply of packages. There is always a chance that this evening will see the delivery of the number one package which you sent out. There is so much mail that they take a 1½-ton truck into town instead of the small mail truck.
We had a Retreat Parade this morning and right after breakfast we all dressed in our khakis and marched around the field to the accompanying tunes of the band for more than a half hour.
We have had that band working overtime during the last few days. Not only have they been practicing every morning in the big tent but they also have played for Retreat when the flag is lowered at five o'clock and then right after last night' concert they had to come out for the parade. And Monday morning will hear them sound off for about twenty minutes in the celebration of payday.
My cramp is less noticeable than ever but the tenderness still lingers in the right elbow. Maybe it will turn into one of those delayed action cases like Aunty Florence had where it took several weeks for the chipped bone to work loose and cause serious pain. I doubt it, though, because I just don't ever get hurt like that. Knock, knock.
And I still haven't had a word about the puppy from Thomas Campbell.
So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman