May 16, 1942

Fort Bragg, North Carolina

May 16, 1942 : 5AM

(on C.Q.)

Dear Mom:

It’s your soldier boy again – guess I haven’t written for quite some time have I. There’s a good reason though & this is it. My co-worker Sgt. Hebert has been on a 10 day furlough and it’s been up to poor little me to keep all of our little shave-tails around here happy. And what I mean it’s been a job! I have been working almost every night lately to keep up with my work. At last things are clearing up again tho because Hebert is back again so I expect to have a little free time.

Thanks for sending me my tennis shoes so quickly – now that I’ll have a little time again I expect to make good use of them. The battery furnishes us with some excellent Wright & Ditson rackets and Spalding balls. Tennis courts are all completed now and in good shape.

Thanks also for those delicious cookies – they were really tops. Evidence of the fact that they were really good is the complete disappearance of complete stock of cookies which were received only yesterday. It seems that the boys really go for cookies with those little concealed lumps of chocolate in them. Me too.

Hope you had a nice Mother’s Day by the way. Lentoni and I spent the day in Raleigh. It was one of those balmy bright southern days. We were in Raleigh over night & Sunday morning then we hit the road & thumbed our way to Chapel Hill. This little town is the home of the University of North Carolina… You should see their campus, very tree-ey and flowery. Vines cover all the building – it’s a very old University. Ed & I rented bikes and rode all over the area – saw the whole works and got a couple of sore rear-ends doing it. Guess we’re not used to such little seats.

Our trip to the mountains, in case you’re wondering about it, was called off. The fellows didn’t seem to have the funds to cover such a long trip – it’s about 300 miles to Ashville & that’s quite a ways. I don’t imagine we’ll ever get to make this trip now because of the gasoline rationing. Oh well there’s a lot of places around here to go that are a lot closer.

This weekend Ed, George (who just got back from a 10 day furlough), and I are going up to Greensboro where we have dates with those college gals from W.C.U.N.C. I hope we have good weather but have my doubts because we’ve had rain here for the last 3 days. Boy, we really had a downpour last night – half of the sand must have washed away from under Fort Bragg.

……..THOUGHTS WHILE ON CQ:...Where the deuce did Daddy get all that ambition? He certainly is going to town on the house, fence, porch, storm-windows, birdhouses, etc. Say Dad, did you get to go out to Midland Hills to watch that Hope, Crosby, Cooper, & Mund foursome? I’d like to have been on hand for that one. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you had dinner with them after the match……Sure am anxious to see Dot’s little offspring……Coll is in Sill you know – haven’t heard from him yet……Got a letter from Schaper, he’s doing fine in the Air Force…Rolie wrote me last week – he’s expecting to shove off for an unknown destination very soon on the “U.S.S.Pollux”……..

Remember the trouble I used to have with my ears plugging up on me? Well they were plugged up on me for a couple weeks so bad that it was hard for me to hear people talking to me. I got pretty worried because they didn’t open up like they had in the past so I took a hike up to the dispensary for an exam. They discovered nothing more serious than an over abundance of wax, so they gave me an ear wash and now I can hear again – it’s wonderfull.

Well I guess that about winds up the news of the “roaming son” so for the present I’ll say adios & hope everythings fine with y’all.

Love, Dorance