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

Dear Aunty Clara,

Saturday

Whew, there seem to be less and less hours in the day as time goes by. For example, the time now is one-thirty (Sunday Morning) and I have had my 1st break of the day to sit down and write. In fact, I was tired enough as it was and now another day of full activity has made me just that much more tired. Here is the whole story in a nut shell. The new working hours went into effect today. Nine hours a day from seven in the morning until five at night, seven days a week and no more day's off ever. That means 63 hours a week which back home at time and a half would be alright but in the army you don't get anything extra out of it except something additional to gripe about.

So it nears five bells tonight and I am looking blissfully towards the half hour of sleep I will be able to get before we pile into the chow hall at five-thirty (used to be five o'clock); but Joe Suiter wanted me to get some forms and I had to take a run down to the old outfit and borrow some from Al Welling (he does my job in that bn). By the time I got back I had to go directly into the eatery.

Comes my half hour rest after chow which I always allow myself no matter what because it keeps a fellow from getting indigestion but bad. So instead of taking a shower, instead of going out to a dance with Sackett, and instead of going to the show to see Laird Cregar's last picture "Hangover Square", I went into the inner depths of the monastery where some scrap lumber was laying around and (with Lt. Levine's official approval) I got busy constructing a desk for myself which no one else seems to want to do in spite of Lt. Suiter having put in a request for same. Lt. Levine even gave me hinges for the thing.

When it was finally finished, it resembled my footlocker for size only but I must admit it is a queer design. You see most people like to have flush sides to desks and things but I was looking for interior space and put all the cleats on the outside (had to use butt joint lumber) and as a result the "smoothness" is destroyed with ten of the twelve cleats in plain view. However, long ago at RH&R I discovered a box could be built in a variety of fashions. The only trouble I really had was with the cover. I had the box completely built by nightfall and then spent the next two and a half hours trying to get the cover to fit and work with the hinges. You see I was too lazy to go thru extra pains by making the cover larger and instead of fitting on top, it fit inside which made me go thru the process of carving out a niche for the hinge to fit in. Then when I put the box on my desk where I had been using my footlocker for a desk, I discovered things were cumbersome and proceeded immediately to go into a think. I came out of it with a hair brained idea for a framework which I could build for the box and bring it down in height so that I could open it from my chair without rising as heretofore. Two more hours shot and then it was wrong so in about fifteen minutes of extemporaneous carpentry I did what I wanted to do in the first place. That gives me not only the more convenient box, my footlocker and belongings in my tent, but also an additional portable desk which I have set up between Jack's desk and mine for our mutual use. Yes, Jack works right next to me yet. On account of the late hour I will say so-long now instead of on a second page.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman