Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 709
c/p SF Cal
10 December 1944
Dear Aunty Clara,
Sunday
Well, here I am, back in the office writing this second letter of the day. As I suggested in the last part of this afternoon's letter, I went down to the basketball court and shot a few baskets for about an hour and a half to two hours. It seems to be a lot of fun this game of basketball and was one of the sports I missed during my high school days by being impervious to it. Of course, I rather think a fellow is better off not to have played it for it is a regular killer. I believe that tennis is the most strenuous game I ever played for running around continuously and becoming heated up under a summer sun, but this game of basketball can make tennis look sick. So I guess I will stick to just shooting the baskets and not engaging in the game itself.
The time now is shortly after seven o'clock and just a few moments ago I was sitting in the battalion library reading a few of the latest American magazines. When the seven o'clock news broadcast came on the air, I knew that the show was going to begin soon and since I was not going to go to it, I thought I might as well relieve the Charge of Quarters in Headquarters now in order that he could see it all. Bill Grauel was the CQ who relieved me when I went off this afternoon and it was he who I just sent on down to the show. The picture is a good one, "Double Indemnity" With Fred MacMurray and Barbara Stanwyck, but I've read a countless number of writeups on the story already and practically know it by heart so that there would be no surprise in it for me. And, furthermore, it is not what I would consider one of the top flight pictures. As I said before, my resolution is to go to only those pictures which I would go to see if I were back home and made a decent choice instead of merely going to every new movie that came to the local theater four times a week.
Even the bad things in life sometimes are blessings in disguise. I've wanted to put this not-going-to-every-show idea of mine into effect for quite a while now, but it took the movie picture operator's job by command performance to stir me into action. Now the disagreeable part is gone but the beneficial outcome of it remains. That is one thing that never seems to happen and that is life becoming all bad --- it may grow dark at times but something always turns up for the better.
There is a bad feature to my staying here this evening although it probably could have existed later on in the evening when I'd come in to do a bit of typing. Moreno has the 1st stages of a cold when the nose runs and the sneezes are on. They are highly contagious at times like that. I felt like a cold the other day and this may bring it on. If the people around me wouldn't get colds, I'd never catch them --- but that is sort of a silly statement to make for if people didn't have colds, there wouldn't be such a thing as a cold anyway.
After finishing the first part of today's letter to you, I dashed off a double-spaced sheet of type to Robbin in which I thanked him for his wife's picture, gave him my reactions "candidly" as he requested and also sent him about ten Christmas cards they printed here on the island and which New Caledonia didn't do. They came in very late and since Carol was a last minute addition to my Christmas card list, I sent her one of them. They were rather interesting and he wanted some to send out to a few friends.
Now if I can extend my letter answering to everyone else, I'll be in the groove once again. But it is high time that I begin making official thanks for some of the unthanked Christmas presents. By V-mail they should arrive just before that big day and give the people the idea that they were more or less timely instead of coming in Nov as they did. Yours and AF's looks as if it is going to come at last.
So-long, /s/ Roman Roman