Description
For October 29th Yes, Sweetie, casual as it was, I remember, and the recollection is a sweet one. These are just to make my birthday as happy a one for me as circumstances permit. I love you, darling Stinker 355 Monday 29 October 10 pm My dearest darling, You have been more than ever in my thoughts today. Perhaps you’d like to hear a little bit about how I spent the day. In the first place I might remark that as I traveled around the island I saw it in a new light, and it became beautiful again as it was when I first saw it (and have seen it at occasional intervals since) while I played with the possibility of your coming out here. If we could get on Tinian it would be a lovely place to spend a year or two, Sweetie; there are things we’d miss, but they’d be more than offset by the material gain with its greater promise of luxuries and cultural extras in the future, ease of expanding our family in the present - well, anyhow, the not-too-far-away. I woke up thinking of you, the fact that I had arrived on the threshold of maturity, [pg 2] as it were - just the very edge of the threshold - with my attainment of the magical number 32 (2, 4, 8, 16, 32….), and a resolve to be a little better and loftier today than usual as though to set a fresh pace. The result was that I remained very much the same person, with weaknesses and foibles the more evident because I was thinking about it, and wanting you much more, really, than being concerned about my own shortcomings or virtues. About 7:30 I followed Barry up to school for the Monday morning staff meeting (yeoman, our other enlisted men), having meanwhile dropped off my laundry and mailed Wendy's box (parcel post insured - I forgot to make it Special, in my haste.) In a day or two I'll send you a list of its contents in a sealed envelope which you are not to open until you've unwrapped the contents of the box - the list is for explanatory purposes only. [pg 3] At the meeting it developed that typing classes scheduled to begin today had not started because the Nisei who was to teach them - Tamimoto - was temporarily (and mistakenly) working at the harbor as interpreter for a group of Japanese civilians who are being broken in as stevedores. Having other errands to do including the procurement of a new jeep, Barry and I went out together after making arrangements for Cuddy and Miyamoto to work together on getting the balance of the day's typing classes started. It was a lovely day, dazzlingly bright, and because it was my birthday I felt a kind of holiday spirit, enjoying the ride instead just going out to get something. At the wharf we located Wong (also working there temporarily, but [pg 4] by permission), got straightened out on Tamimoto, and dropped in a the Port Director's Office to see what chance we’d have of picking up book accommodations at Tinian upon leaving: we learned that if our orders called for inactive on reaching the States we’d have to go via Saipan because there are no separation facilities here. Thence to pick up the new jeep; but on the way we noticed the Army Medical Supply Depot where I’d been intending to stop in to pick up some first aid kits for the scouts. Upon explaining our purpose we were able to pick up all sorts of stuff in addition to kits - bandages, compresses, adhesive, a weighing scale for the school dispensary, scissors, Red Cross arm bands, etc. At the nearby Quartermaster Depot vehicle storage lot, where I counted about 50 unopened crates of jeeps and more than that many of a combined assortment of 6x6's, [re?] [pg 5] weapons carriers, etc., we found that the papers had not yet been cleared (but would be by early afternoon), and left. You can’t get a crated jeep, but there are lots of them available on the [Loop?] in various degrees of wear and tear. Barry was holding out for a new one, and when we came back at one o'clock we got it. Had been uncrated but never used (75 miles on it); the canvas for the toys was still in its wooden box, in fact. It is a Willys rather than a Ford - if I were buying one I’d have the former. We went directly in to chow, and then I returned to our quarters to open my birthday box. It was fun unwrapping the pretty packages. Thank you, darling, for the beautiful pair of socks - the color was wisely chosen: one that I can wear now but which really looks civilian. I do like them very much and they were the nicest thing you could have sent. Incidentally the white wool pair you made for me I used to wrap some things in for the green Christmas box now on its way to you. They were pretty well shot. [pg 6] The two books I browsed in a little (I’d quite forgotten mentioning Bacon and was very glad to get it; the other will stimulate me to follow the news a little better in a place where that's difficult to do); then I read the preface to the Essays until I got sleepy and lay down for twenty minutes on my nice new rubber-spring bed, the first comfortable thing I've slept in since I've been here except at the hospital some months back. (Barry picked up one for each of us at the 6th Brigade). At one when I went up to school to leave some fruit and stuff we’d picked up in the morning before going out again I was besieged by people wanting things or wanting to talk over things - Sasakura and Father Komatsu, who want to join an adult typing class; Choi, the Korean 1st Presbyt. Minister, who wanted to know when he could have a piano and an organ (we have them but haven't allocated them); Yamashita and Ikeda, who wanted a truck for the afternoon to get roofing [pg 7] tin off buildings at the 110th CBs and felt that this work was more urgent than that of the Korean school, whose turn it was for the truck; etc. And then the school janitor interposed shyly: he knew, or rather his brother-in-law knew, where there were several ironwood boards, if I would like to go out and get them. Tuesday 7:30 am Barrett wanted to go to bed; so I shall have to finish my story later. I love you, darling Warren
