Today's post is a long letter from Julius to Lydia that expands on the letter he wrote to Robert of the same date. It is rather a longer one and is currently posted without annotation or links.
March 28, 1945
Zig Zag, Oregon
Dear Lydia:
You always seem to time your
letters just at the right time. After hounding the fellow who goes after the
mail day after day, you letter arrives –giving the fellow a reprieved from a
scalping with a cleaver. Your enclosure of a fiver also came in right handy. I
was sown to the point of making white flags of my pockets.
I got word last week that there was
going to be another meeting of the committee on Post-war planning of CPS men in
Berkeley, so I’m going to go down the weekend of April 6,7, and 8. After the
meetings, I’m going to go home for a few days before heading north again. When
I went down in January, it turned out to be quite a strenuous trip to leave
Portland on Thursday for a weekend in Berkeley and then head back on Sunday
evening. I’ll use some of my forest service days that I’ve accumulated by
working Sundays so I won’t have to use any furlough days. Marian wrote that Walt
was planning to come out to California in April and so I’m hoping that it will
be the first part of the month.
Our clique of five is still
planning to drive down to southern California around the 15th of May
for two weeks. We’ll drive down in the Station wagon that we came up in last
fall and go back by bus. If everything works out as planned, I’ll be down to
see you for a little bit anyway. Since that trip will be so short, my going
home in April should compensate for the fact that I won’t be home more than a
day or two in May. I hope Mom will agree. One of these days I’m going to have
to write to Mom and bawl her out for not writing I guess. I’ve written (or try
to) once a week for the past month and haven’t heard from her yet.
We go the stationwagon designated
as a camp car and got a C card for it to make emergency trips to Portland and
trips to main camp. While we didn’t really expect to have to use it very much,
it turned out that it was fortunate that we did. Shortly after we got the gas,
Del tangled with the planning machine in the wood shop and nearly cut one of
his fingers off just above the last joint. Another fellow and I went into
Gresham (about 30 miles from here) with him and that doctor took the bone that
had be (sic) cut thru out and sewed the finger together saying she hoped that
it would heal. Fortunately it has. He had to go back several times to get it
looked after. Then on day just after he got back from the doctor, we had another
emergency with one of the fellows who had gone skiing. He was jumping and fell
onto the tip of his ski and fractured the bone in his cheek—another trip to
town.
Monday was the last day that Del
had to go to the doctor and we took that opportunity to go into town to here
(sic) a concert. We heard the duo-pianists Lubosutz and Nemenoff. They were
pretty good but I think I prefer solo pianists. Lubosutz banged the piano so
hard at times that he nearly drowned out his wife’s playing. We also took in a
flicker that afternoon. Saw “A Tree Grows in Brooklyn” which wasn’t too bad—somewhat
sentimental. About a month ago we saw the old Classic “a Birth of Nation (sic)”
and “intolerance” in camp. Intolerance was the best of the two. I recognized a
few of the names of the actors and actresses such as Lillian Gish, Colleen
Moore, Donald Crisp (even then), Douglas Fairbanks and a few others.
Just before I started this letter,
I finished a V mail letter to Robert. I had been meaning to write to him
earlier but as usual I let other things interfere with my writing. I’m in about
the same boat as you are as far as news to write to him. I guess that he’s at
least enjoyed the travelling around Italy he’s done—not that by plane. His
mention of lack of modern conveniences isn’t surprising.
The midnight curfew of course hasn’t
affected us as it has you and Walter on account of we aint’ got no night life—unless
you would call Bridge and occasional beer drinking night life. I have gotten a
few books read in the past month but none of them particularly sensation. I
guess Huxley’s “Time must have a Stop” was the best.
I won’t be surprised if I start
sprouting webs between my toes. During the past three weeks we’ve had about
three days of sunshine. The rest of the time it’s been raining in varying degrees
of volume. The siege of good weather in January is exacting its toll now. Then again
if it wasn’t for the weather, we’d be hard put for something to complain about
in our weaker moments.
I guess I’ve rambled on enough for
one time. Oh yes, I nearly forgot about the big meal we put on here a week ago
last Tuesday—which incidentally was the third anniversary of my arrival in
camp. We gave a dinner for the Forest Ranger here who is leaving the first of
the month to go to another district. We invited all the Forest Service men and their
wifes (sic) plus a few additional people around here and id turned out to be a
very fine affair. We had to have ham since we couldn’t get decent turkeys. How do
you like that “had to have ham”? To us ham doesn’t have the glamor that it used
to even though it is hard to find in stores. The reason is because at camp now
they are smoking and curing their own so we usually get on ham a week here.
Besides the ham we had candies sweet potatoes, fresh peas and carrots, hot rolls
(make mit me own paws), avocado and orange salad, Ice Cream and fruit cake. We
got them stiffed. You’ll have to take a vacation up this way sometime I really
will have to stop if I expect to get this in today’s mail.
Love,
Julius
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