Rambling On

Thurs. 14 Dec. ‘44

 

Dear folks,

One more day to cross off the list. I’m in a little better spirits tonight fortunately. That wasn’t much of a letter that I wrote last night. I guess first I better recapitulate a bit. I’ve been numbering my envelopes but the censor tells me that’s out so I’m doing a little differently to let you know how many letters to look for. So far I’ve written something every day and so long as possible I’ll keep it up. If and when there’s a break I’ll let you know when I did write and when I didn’t in the next letter so you will be able to tell about what to look for. So when you start getting mail again it will take up right where the last one left off. I wrote once by V-mail and I’ve use “Free” mail ever since which will probably be a lot slower. When I am where the mail will go right out I’ll use air mail perhaps so you’ll probably get the V-mail & the air mail first and then these will come tagging in. I imagine you’ll get better results than I. I expect mine to come in groups of ½ dozen or so letters but then I may be luckier, at first at least. I’m hoping we have plenty waiting for us when we arrive. I presume you’ve been writing regularly – so if it’s by air mail it ought to be there. Today we were told to leave the APO # blank on our envelopes that we mail so we may have a new number. All the letters I’ve been mailing have the old 17567 but they’ll probably change them for us or let them go as is. I’ll get it all O.K. so don’t worry about having written to the old address. That explains that a little I guess and I’ll get to something else.

I got to bed at about 9:30 last night but didn’t sleep too well. I felt a little steadier this morning and as soon as I ate I beat it up on deck and spent the whole forenoon outside in the air. It’s the only place to be when you don’t feel too good. I stood for over an hour just watching the water go by. I’ve discovered that watching the waves doesn’t make one sick. I believe the sea was just as rough but one can get used to it. I was a little distressed at the beginning of the trip, then got used to it until it got rougher, now I’m used to that. If it doesn’t roughen up more maybe I’ll make it. I came down this afternoon and started doing a little work. Sgt. Kumins hunted me up and told me I had to finish by tomorrow so I worked steadily all afternoon until I finished a little before supper. I just had my nightly stroll around deck. It’s mighty dark out tonight.

We change time again tonight. This is the 3^rd time we’ve been set ahead an hour and always at night so we lose an hour’s sleep. I can just guess that when we come back some day those extra hours will be during the day instead of night.

I was really surprised today. Remember that little kid, a T/5, that I was talking to one night when we were sitting downtown on my furlough last June? His name is Dick Heil. I was walking around with Buck today and I saw someone that looked like him. By the time it dawned on me he was gone. If you’ll remember, he said several fellows from our old High School class were in his outfit. So I started keeping my eyes open. I haven’t run into him again but tonight I ran into another one, Dillard Garrisson. So some of the old home town is on here too, by coincidence. I believe Ken Hammond and a couple more are in that outfit too. I’m going to try to look them up if I can because, once we land, we’ll probably be separated. It was good to see a couple old familiar faces. I’ve know these 2 since Jr. High at French.

Well I’ve rambled on for 3 pages and haven’t said too much but really there isn’t too much I can say. I have a couple letters here to answer so maybe I’ll do that yet tonight. I also have a book that was in that Red Cross kit which I’m reading at. Anyway I guess I’ve run down for today so I’ll sign off and turn this over to the censor. So long for tonight,

Love

Arlington