Home | Return to Index

Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 709
c/o PM San Francisco, California
1 June 1944

Dear Aunty Clara,

Thursday Nite

Maybe I'm getting punchy but I just woke up (and it's five after ten) after laying down on my cot at four o'clock this afternoon. I was dead to the world for six hours until Lewis came back down to the barracks to go to sleep. The best part of it was that the Canteen was celebrating the promotions and I missed all of it. The fellows were giving Jack the rib so much about his not having any stripes on, while everyone else was walking around with them on, that he finally had to give in and sew one pair on. Another thing incident to these new ratings is that after getting used to having Cpl in front of your name when answering the telephone it is also the queerest thing in the world to say "Sgt" Klick. Incidentally, it looks like a rival canteen is going up with Mersing, Lompre, Edie and Berk and the boys are borrowing Lewis's hot plate to keep their place going.

O yes, at three o'clock or three-thirty Lewis wanted to find out what they were serving down in the mess hall for supper so we would know whether to open up the Canteen for toasted cheese sandwiches or not. We found out that fried pork was on the menu and that means those sausage like pieces of pork fried and put between two slices of bread. We were undecided about it when the cooks offered us a sample and that sample sandwich eventually proved to be my main and only meal this evening. I believe before I go to bed tonight, I will make myself a cup of milk. Johnny Marth is also getting some ideas from seeing us fellows successfully making milk out of the powdered stuff so he has mixed some of this ice cream powder together and served up something that tastes like egg nog.

The pictures at the midnight show this evening are "Spoilers" and "Two-Faced Woman". I've seen both of the pictures and the Spoilers is a lousy one while "The Two-Faced Woman" with Greta Garbo is better but not worth seeing over again. Tomorrow evening we have "The Invaders" with Raymond Massey and Laurence Olivier.

But now to answer your three letters dated the 19th, 21st and 22nd which I have neglected up to this time. So what we said has come true and that was about Bill going back to work again and making more money now than he ever did before. It seems impossible that from the sloughs of debt and despondency the Schmidts are now looking around to buy a home. In order to just keep abreast of our friends and relatives after this war we will definitely have to have our own home. I wish that Bella would sell her place to Uncle King for he sure enough deserves a break and I believe he could make a very handsome living out of it if it were all his own and he had a free hand to do as he pleased.

I didn't know whether to laugh or to just wonder in amazement at Aunty Florence when she waited in a doorway for almost an hour so that she wouldn't have to go thru the rain for two blocks and get her brand new white shoes wet. If I could afford to buy Mrs Vintera's store, I would do it just like that for both the Prokopec family and the Pavalchik family made their money (as well as the Vinteras themselves) out of grocery stores. They are a gold mine and for about four or five years of hard work they are worth all the time you put into them. Of course, Vintera's should have been smart like the other two and gone out of the business after their start in life was assured. I don't suppose she will own the store at the end of the war or if she owned it, I probably wouldn't be able to scare up the money to buy the place. Maybe you ought to find out about it and run the place between Aunty Florence, Uncle Jack and yourself. No?

If this tiredness keeps up, my prolific pen writing days are over for it is all I can do to knock this thing out. I did, however, manage to knock out one letter to Harvey Beaumont which I will send today along with this one although that is just a single letter to him and none other.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman