[52] Sunday 10 June 1945

14 AA Command

APO 322, Frisco

Sweetheart;

Here I am at the end of a fairly profitable day. Profitable in the matter of work accomplished that is. I did all the layout work for the lettering on the cover of the booklet we’re working on in the office. This afternoon I brought some drafting tools to the tent and then worked the biggest part of the afternoon on a new project I’m started on. I’ll let you know what it is when I finish it and see how it comes out. I think you will agree that it will be one of my best pieces of work till now. That’s all I can say.

I downed a few beers this afternoon and evening and found that after three beers I was getting fairly woozy. I just can’t take it anymore. The beer was cold though and this made it quite palatable even though it was Hyde Park beer, not one of the world’s best brews. A fellow who works in the officers mess has some ice in a pail and since Kettler is a

2. good friend of his we all had out beer chilled. Later in the afternoon I knocked off working for a while and listened to Command Performance. Today it consisted of the operetta “The Wedding of ”. The main characters were:

Dick Tracy – Bing Crosby

Tess Trueheart – Bob Hope

Chief of Police – Jerry Colonna

Vitamin Flintheart – Frank Morgan

Snowflake – Judy Garland

Shaky – Frank Sinatra

The Mole – Jimmy Durante

The Summer Sisters – The Andews Sisters

Gravel Gertie – Cass Daley

You can imagine from this lineup what kind of program it was. I enjoyed it very much. We do have some good radio programs here. We get the regular radio shows with all commercials cut out. They are still half hour shows though so I guess what they do is put in extra songs by the band on the programs as a filler for the ads.

3.

The only commercial we get at all come during the breaks between programs and these commercials consist of cautions to conserve food, clothing, and equipment and not to divulge information which would aid the enemy. Programs are much better without all the interruptions to see products. Just what has come [scratched out word] over you Honey? You spoke of hating to quit work on the cabin when night came, it was so much fun. That was the first time I had ever heard you say that. I think I know just what you mean though because I feel that way about doing any work with my hands on something I want to do. I get quite enthused about it and enjoy it [scratched out word] very much. I like to see the work progressing. See, I’m not absolutely lazy Honey. I gather that the cabin you have is covered with cedar. It must look quite nice. I’m anxious to see it.

I can’t quite see eye to eye on you in the matter of reading long novels. I can’t read any novel for any great length of time – I take that back because there are some few which I have

4. read and enjoyed. If I read a long novel, I have to do it over an extended period of time. I can’t go through it all at once. At the present time I have redrawn the book I had on American History and am quite a ways along in it. I find that I knew very little about the history of our own nation and I also find that it makes quite interesting reading.

How near is Gaylord to the lake? And what size is it? I was just wondering if there was any form of entertainment there such as a dance hall or bowling alley.

So you’re interested in going into the construction racket!! I think your mother is a very wonderful person and get a great deal of enjoyment from some of the ideas she advances. I will admit that this one has merit though because there will be quite a demand for anything like that after the war. Most people have put money aside and will want to spend some of it for their own pleasure. This would be one of the ways they would almost surely choose to spend

5. their money. The only smart way to do it would be to sell them instead of just renting them as some people do. If you sell them you are sure of the [scratched out word] profit and don’t have to worry about repairs, bad seasons, or anything else. Of course all this is in the realm of speculation because we shall not become contractors. There are too many risks involved and it takes a man with much experience to make any kind of go of it. I do want to build our own cabin when we get around to having one. That will be a lot of fun.

Don’t worry about the Wacs getting popular with me Darling. Not only do I never see any of them, but from what I hear of them I am just as well off. The magazine article sounds just like the kind of tripe the damned magazines back home feed the people. As far as I, and just about everyone else I have ever spoken to on the subject, feel about it, the army made a terrible mistake when they brought Wacs overseas. It may be all right to have them in the States where they can do office work, but over here they

6. are just a headache. As far as cheering the boys is concerned, that is a lot of hooey, believe me. If there are no women around a place, there just are no women and you never give it a thought; but to just have these few around is a source of constant irritation because then the fellows have the women around but can’t get near them and that is much worse than not having any around at all. Not that I got around busting after every woman that I see here. It’s just that having them around is a constant reminder of the girl I have back home and want to be with so very badly – that’s you Honey, you may take a big and well deserved bow for being so very nice and beautiful, and lovable. In other words, I am against Wacs coming overseas.

I must leave you for now Darling. Goodnight and pleasant dreams. May they all be of me as I hope mine will all be of you. I love you very much, Beautiful.

7.

Monday morning

Well Darling, your vacation is ended and you’re back at work once more. It’s a heck of a let down isn’t it? I can sympathize with you. I wish that our whole life could be just one pleasant vacation, unhampered by work of any kind except anything we like to do. I wish we could find some way of fixing life that way. I have a lot of crackpot theories which I am mulling over in my mind, things that I could do to earn our daily bread and enjoy it. I hope I can evolve something tangible that would solve out problem. I’ll let you know if I can percolate any first rate ideas.

Right now it is time for me to go to work so goodbye my Darling.

I love you with all my heart.

Freddie