12/15/39
Randolph Field, Texas
Darling:
One month has pasted since our arrival. Angel, I miss you terribly, but it just has to be for a while longer. I’m afraid I am very jealous of the young married officers around the post. Even without the very pressing reasons of wanting to play with your hair, hold you tight, talk to you, and make love to you, if I don’t get some of your cooking pretty soon I’ll go nuts.
Your last two letters about scared the pants off of me, but I guess everything will be ok. I’ll bet that chicken was good! Say “hi” to Wayne for me.
Well, I’m doing a little better now. Eye trouble is all cleared up, and baseball sore spots are gone. We had an hour of night flying Thursday, and it was great sport. Landing by floodlight at night seems to be easier for me than daytime landings. Over half of the hour was solo, and I made 5 solo and 2 dual landings. After all this time, they exempted me from the radio code class. I spent the period yesterday giving the final exam to the upperclass! I only have to go back once a week as a formality. My other grades seem to be 95 or above, as all of our scholastic work to date has been a push-over.
So you’re getting a tree for us! I guess the small one will do for the next couple of years or more, until it becomes imperative that we get a real one, if you know what I mean.
Time out for mess.
Boy, if I could capture the spirit of the bull-session I was just in in a play, we’d make a fortune. All of us from Chicago have stuck together, and we congregate a couple of times per week. O’Brien damn near made me die laughing. Because of his oversize abdomen, he has been taking a beating from the upperclass. Today, he put 25 yards of thread in his pocket and fished an end out through a hole. One of the upperclassmen, while looking him over, tried to remove the “thread”. You can imagine the result.
While standing at attention, one’s eyes are supposed to be focused on a point. One of the upperclass yelped at Donaldson, and caused an uproar. He said, “Mr. Donaldson, are your eyes on a point?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Donaldson.
“What point, mister?”
“That spider on your neck, sir,” calmly answered Bill. Even though there wasn’t a spider, it was pretty good.”
I was looking up Mother’s niece’s phone number tonight, to get the address, and the instructions for use of the dial system here, printed on the inside cover of the phone book, were pretty good. They might be useful in Chicago, so I shall copy them herewith for your personal use.
Quote:
There are a number of exchanges in San Antonio. If you find “Sheetz zero-zero” to be the number you want to call, put your finger in the S hole and oh, oh! Likewise, if the exchange had been “Peace”, you would have put your finger in the P hole. Of course, there are a number of situations in which more personal attention is required. In this case, put your finger in the operator’s hole and turn once. If nobody comes, repeat the process until the desired reaction is obtained. As a last resort, call the manager, who is a fairy nice man. Unquote.
I bought a couple dozen Xmas cards like the one I am sending you and sent them to everybody and his brother. For once, I got my Xmas cards out before New Year’s. I yet don’t know where I shall spend my vacation until I check into prices to Arizona etc. It starts in a week and is five days long. We fly all tomorrow morning and every Saturday for some time to make up for the time off. This is a break for it ditches Saturday morning inspection and review. We’re having a big dress parade Sunday night. Boy, there are going to be some sad-eyed boys dragging their rifles around after the brawl Saturday.
Restrictions on the dance include no passing out, no gum chewing, no jitterbugging, and no green suits allowed.
Well, darling, lots of love to the sweetest little wife in the world. No pictures yet, but I’ll see what I can do. Cy.