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#49 Thurs Nov. 16th 8:15 pm Dearly Beloved - And tonight especially so - This afternoon I bought a bottle of bourbon from a man who is leaving (my one canteen [?] and my bottle of dry sac are still en route in my other sea bag) and had a drink to celebrate a day I shall always remember, and probably with increasing nostalgia. I had wanted very much to have this evening free to spend with you but have had to return to the office to sit in on a council meeting of the Korean Camp leaders - it's still in progress and I'm getting sleepy. (Just as I finish saying so the meeting breaks up; its dozen or so members are presented to me - I hadn't arrived when it began - by the leader Ri Sau; we exchange [hajimetes?] and [yorashiken?], followed by o [yosumi nasais?] as they leave. Evan Davis was here halfway thru the evening and whispered some news you will be glad to hear - Catherine undecided-yet Davis was born on Nov. 6; 6 pounds [?] oz., ten days ahead of time (castor oil, on doctor's advice, resulted in a mere half hour's labor)! Harriet Ann was born April 22 ’43; Evan said just the other day that they were so delighted with her that he’d just about as soon have another daughter, tho he hoped it would be a [pg 2] son on the third try. Friday 7 am No letter from you in two days, but I got the one from Kay at an expeditious hour - on my way to dinner last night. I sneaked a glance at it, saw what it was and read it aloud to the whole table, which included Frankel and Etter, and others who you don't know. It caused considerable merriment and I had to read parts of it over again. It is such a classic of its kind that I can't quite bring myself to throw it away. Have a busy day in store for me: write letter suggesting erection of two new Korean shukusha (dwelling, rather than house - made of corrugated tin roofing on a wooden frame which also is frequently “boarded” in with a miscellaneous collection of corrugated tin sheets, many of them full of bullet holes); list people who have relations on other islands and want to join them; recover some Kamas (iron pots) sent by Koreans to the military a few weeks ago; look over some native marriage certificates, and extract essential data from them - name, age, sex, prefecture of origin, date of marriage here. Did I tell you I went to a Korean wedding a couple of days ago? I'll describe it in my next letter to Muz, probably Sunday. To work now. I love you very much and think of you many times a day. Warren
