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Sgt Roman F. Klick 36620923
HS 1393 Engr APO 75
c/p SF Cal
6 July 1945

Dear Aunty Clara,

Friday

I don't know whether I'm coming or going with all the activity and non-activity of the past few days. For one thing I wrote no letters at all Tuesday or Wednesday. On Thursday I wrote the usual two pages but because it was so late at night when I wrote them, I never did address them and they have yet to be mailed. I'll probably repeat some of the things I have already said in yesterday's letters but I guess that is okay.

I failed to mention the letters I have received in the past few days. I received some more "In Fact" newspapers from Blumenfeld, a letter from Eleanor Angsten, a letter from Frances Jastrebski and letters from you dated the 12th, the 22nd and the 23rd. You mention receiving the Invasion money - well because I have shared alike with Lewis in most of the money I've been getting, when he found a second small Jap coin he gave it to me and I will send it home to you for one more souvenir of the overseas life. It is small as the round tokens we used to use in Illinois and just as light and non-metallic sounding.

You also ask about Tagalog sounding Spanish or Japanese. There are many strong indications of a Spanish influence on the language and of all the known languages, it resembles Spanish the most. However, little by little I'm getting to know a few words in it and I find that some are strictly English in origin. Such a one is the lemonade the girls drink at the dance halls. The Tagalog name for it is lemonada.

So you didn't care much for the Look - Bacall. Evidently Humphrey Bogart is fascinated by her to have thrown over Mayo so quickly. Actually it surprised me to see such a publicized divorce and remarriage and was almost like Hollywood being branded.

Let's hope that the Anna Stack type of sister of Mrs. Reed's stays on her good behavior although that seems impossible. Those kind of people must actually have some sort of glandular disorder to make them the way they are. It just isn't natural because people are generally likeable, sociable and pleasant.

Say, whoever that fellow is who fixed the refrigerator for the lady down stairs sure must be running a racket. It is too bad there isn't some way guys like that can't be caught up with.

Today sure was a day of varied activity. For one thing, you know how I had to type out those Morning Reports in the wee hours of the morning so that no one would have to be in the office during the hours seven to eight. Well, when I got down at eight o'clock, the entire morning was shoved up so that the clerks could just as well have typed the reports up at that time instead of coming down the night before. However, that is neither here nor there. The fact of the matter is that both B Company and H&S Company Clerks had come in to type up their Morning Reports but instead of laying them in my "In" basket on my desk, they did the crazy stunt of locking them up in their desk drawers. This morning when they gave them to me, I asked them if they were crazy or something if they expected me to revise all the figures and call in all the reports I had typed up just to get their belated reports in.

The morning when it finally got started went by like a whizz bang. No kidding, I really produced the work although all I did was merely a dent in the accumulated work. Then came the bad part. Before I did anything of my own work in the afternoon I was given a share in the typing up some affidavits required in a certain investigation. Well, that put a crimp into my entire afternoon and I wasn't finished with that until four-thirty and I just got a half a day behind on my work again. I was going to come up this evening to do some work since I was at the point of getting everything lined up fairly well; however, when I had to work on that extraneous matter, I felt that I shouldn't be coming back just to do my own work.

Anyhoo, we don't eat until five-thirty now so I had a chance to rest up a bit on the couch and listen to the fellows gab about going to the dance again tonight and talk about their girlfriends Pat and Remy. Incidentally, when chow did come along it once again was super. We have four good meals a day. Morning-Noon-Evening and Ten o'clock Chow. It seems we have eggs every other day except certain days when we have them day after day in succession. It certainly must be true that the American soldier is better fed today than the person back home.

The fellows did go out but I had more important things to do. No one in the office seems to worry about getting my desk made for my work so my footlocker must still be used. I decided to put a stop to that by one of two things. Empty out all the stuff in the footlocker and bring it down to the tent anyway or else make something for the time being for the tent and keep it until I can bring my footlocker down. That is what I did tonight.

It was by the merest opportunity I ran across some scrap lumber which when patched together made what looks like a cabinet of shelves. About shoulder high (Filipino shoulder) and about two feet wide. There are four shelves which really only allow three deep store room shelves while the top one is for miscellaneous items. For a back I got hold of some scrap canvas and did an expert job of covering it up so it looks half way decent. I got that canvas idea from previous footlockers and also for my experience in New Caledonia when Headquarters had to build that barn. (You remember that barn of a canopy between all the headquarters tents.)

And that was a job too, I got all sweated up and it took me well over three hours. When I went down for my ten o'clock snack of cocoa and bread-jelly sandwich I felt that I really deserved it even if the work I did was for my own convenience.

Still no word on the X-ray and the temperature remains at a perfect norm of 98.6. I saw more fellows from the old outfit and I believe that Sunday I ought to go up to see them.

A side note: Every time I hear fast music beating away on the radio, I try swinging her out a bit and sooner or later I'm going to get the knack of that fancy jitterbugging footwork and when I do, hurrah, I'll be able to spend an evening on a dance floor instead of merely one or two stumbling, fumbling dances. What a casanova I must want to become.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman