4/12/40
Brooks Field, TX
Honey Bunch:
Brrr! It’s cold as the devil! A norther blew in last night and the temperature dropped almost to freezing.
Well, here goes. At present I have about $50 clear. This should be $75 by the end of next month. I don’t know any more about the score now than I did six months ago. But unless something drastic comes up, I should be a fool not to marry you as planned. The only stumbling blocks I can see now are (1) foreign duty or (2) cadet status and pay for three months after “graduation.” The first is possible and the second is conceivable, although neither is probable. So I see no reason why you can’t let ‘em know about it. Honey, if I can’t marry you right away, I can take care of you—at least until you get settled. Frankly, I expect to be sleeping with my baby in the next two months or so. I know you’ll feel funny about engagement rings and stuff, and I wish I could do something about it, but I don’t feel that strapping ourselves with $250 in addition to the $200 for uniform, $200 for furniture and linen and $500 for a car (if it’s necessary) is advisable. That will come later.
So you still want Wayne to announce our engagement? If so, the best bet is to wait until I have graduated, although if you want to go ahead it really doesn’t make much difference. Officially, yours truly is “a flying Cadet in the Air Corps Advanced Flying School, Brooks Field, Texas” and is a former RCA radio engineer. For publication, due to my set-up, no date had best be mentioned. It’s up to you whether you want it published. It will probably be too hard to take without the ring, though.
Damn it, I wish we could be stationed here! Mickey and Martha are swell, and Annie Claire and Cousin Annie Laurie and Arthur are just as fine. You can thank them for making up my mind to go ahead this spring, for they’ve put up a swell campaign. That old bugaboo of foreign service is the only catch, for I wouldn’t have enough nerve to marry you before July 1, and then go off on a year of foreign duty before I could be with you.
We have a cross country to Navasota to Houston in the afternoon and from there to Palacios to Corpus Christi to Brooks the same night. That trip is 540 miles, most of which is across that damned mesquite. You can’t miss, though, barring mechanical trouble.
Everything down here is covered with leaves and it is pretty. Occasionally, one flies over a field of blue-bonnets.
Tell Gordon I flew a 140 mile course, involving 5 turns of 90 degrees or more and hit my terminal within 4 seconds of my estimated time. We have to hit the rendezvous almost that close or the other ships will be out of sight.
Lots of love, Cy.