Sorry I haven’t written for the past week, but I have been in the hospital again with malaria. As usual, it didn’t bother me very much. I’m back to normal now, but a little weak.
As soon as I get a chance I’ll send home a couple of hundred. Up here where I have to make trips and things I like to keep some on hand.
I am getting damned disgusted with the general set-up, but shall stick it out for a while. Things are bound to be shuffled when Jerry folds up.
One of my radio ops from the 17th is here! He recognized me and we had quite a gab session. Johnny has been damn fine about coming to see me as have some other people not in the section. They are all out for throat cutting. To hell with ‘em.
What a wind! I’d like to castrate the guy who picked out this camp site. It is situated on a hump in the mountains which intercepts all of the air that moves in the northern Mediterranean. The result is a funneling effect which is a doozy. It is 30 mph steady with gusts to 60. Naturally, all canvas is down. We’ve bitched for 2 months for the 16 pegs per tent we should have and never gotten but 6. This fucked up hq has no more idea of how to live outdoors than the Oak Park women’s club has. I was on a flat plain with winds like this last year and never lost a single tent.
P.S. All the secret files are blowing around hill.
I sent $500 to the bank today. That should leave $250 for furniture, as I presume we have at least the 1000-1000-500 bank balance I stipulated. How about sending me a rough monthly statement of how much is in the checking account at end of month (with all bills paid and the following month’s allotment not yet added?) It will help me plan a bit.
Doc Aiken wants me to go to Harvard or M.I.T. I think Harvard is the best deal. I can’t get interested in going back to smudgy old Lafayette. That would probably be a bit less expensive, but I think the theoretical reputation at H plus the boilermaker brawn from P.U. should have good sale value.
I took a knife and scraped the corrosion off of my old leaf today. There are a few advantages to being a high ranking major over a very young Lt. Col. At least there are no snipers behind my back.
Well, Honey, the wind is more than I can combat.
All my love, Kitten. Cy
Tell mother I’ll write when I’ve got a little more zip.
What a sour life. Actually all any of us are doing is waiting for the end. An Air Force is predominately a planning and policy directing agency, and our future is yet too hazy to start any sensible planning. Knowing me as you do, you can realize that I am not happy sitting here drawing my pay and trying to amuse myself by study and a few trips now and then. It is not a case of laying down on the job. There is little work to do, but I know if I do it, it will merely lay in the files until no longer pertinent.
We are certainly far removed from the war in this section. Things which used to be very important look small to people up here. Personally I feel it is much more important to get sun goggles for gunners than for WAC secretaries, civilian friends, and headquarters clerks. But who am I to question the needs of the mighty. In this theater, or this AF actually, there are entirely too many cases of people who do nothing getting gravy, and those who fight not even having anything to put the gravy on. I am trying not to become bitter, but it is hard. Even in combat units, a brown nose is worth five well executed missions.
I miss you no end. I guess I’m pretty well settled as an old married man. The French liaison officers had a tea for several of us. During the afternoon, a damn cute blonde (18 years old) informed me out of a clear blue sky that she loved me. I looked a little amazed, so she tried it in 2 other languages. What to do. So ye old wolfe spends the next half hour giving her a fatherly bawling out for running around sticking her neck out that way. It was really quite funny. You can imagine what a “thrill” it is to be continually tossed at by 18-14 year old brats because I look so young.
One of the French officers, although only 22, is quite a character. He escaped to England in 41 and returned in 42 with a portable radio (all by parachute) and spent 1 ½ years reporting Jerry movements. He then came out again and has been working this end of it. He has received no medals or promotion for such splendid and dangerous work.
Last night I helped celebrate the anniversary of the first year of liberation of Corsica. This morning I didn’t feel much like working, as you can well imagine. So I drove all around Café Corse [Corsica]. The fresh air (and aspirins) left me in pretty fair shape.
It was an interesting trip. I saw a windmill of a most peculiar type. The vanes were mounted horizontally, and supported on top of the storage tank.
They grow a lot of field corn here, but it is used solely for feeding chickens. As there is a nearly perpetual wind, it grows on the bias, each stalking leaning about 45 degrees.
Cork trees are also common. The cork bark is stripped off to a height of about 2 meters, leaving a smooth inner bark exposed. This stripping makes the trees look like the legs of a poodle which have been sheared halfway up.
Cork Tree
Each little town has at least once church. Over here, instead of having real bell towers which are square, these are ersatz as show in sketch. The whole business is made of stone.
Bell tower, Corsica
The vehicles on the road were all made before 1925, many of them dating back to 1914. The enclosure is a sketch I made of a bright little red number. It was a “Moon.” There are also some old air-cooled “Franklins,” and some “Stanley Steamers.”
Franklin Brougham
Moon Touring Car
Stanley Steamer
We stopped in a little restaurant for lunch. The people were as clean as those back home. Lunch was not bad. We had a salad of greens, tomatoes, onion, & garlic with French dressing. This was followed by some pasta (like dumplings). Then we had some corn on the cob and an omelet with more salad. Dessert consisted of a peach about 4 inches in diameter. Although the outside of the kettles in which they cook was left absolutely black by charcoal & wood fires, the inside was polished copper.
The phone on the wall, although normal in Europe, looks like something from 1900. A French sailor and his wife and little boy were also eating there. Their uniforms are quite colorful. The hats have little red puff balls on them, and their vests are white with ½ inch blue horizontal stripes.
French Sailor in uniform
That’s the dope for now. I hope our mail starts coming through again.
You sure are cute sitting here on the desk in front of me.
Things in general are rather uninteresting here, although I have found some work to do.
I realize I am driving you crazy buying things for me, but I am determined not to go through another winter with only one book to study—and that one not in my field. I hope to be back where I left off school before I start in again. If I work hard, I can not only get my technical stuff, but may know enough French and Italian to pick up credits in them (as liberal arts options). That my make it possible to finish in 2 semesters instead of three.
I wrote a check for $10 today to Institute of Radio Engineers for a subscription. I am trying to joint same, as it will help. I should have done so 7 years ago. It is hard to get money orders.
I love you, kitten, even if I can’t ever seem to get home. Cy.
