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#73 Navy #3247 (Military Govt) FPO San Francisco Friday 15 December 8pm Darling, Yesterday Henry Graham and I found a scale and got ourselves weighed. Wearing light clothing I came to 130#, about 7 or 8 more than at Columbia. Have you heard the story about…? A guy went driving on a date with a lush, attractive gal. As they drove through town on the way to the country she said [m?gly] “I want to get weighed.” So he stopped the car and took her in a drugstore, where she tipped the scales at 120 pounds. They got back in the car and drove off, and were still driving an hour later when she said, petulantly, “I want to get weighed.” He was a little puzzled but he stopped again at another drugstore in another town, and this time too she weighed 120 pounds. They got back in the car and drove off, and were still driving an hour later when she said, insistently, “I want to get weighed. I wuv you!” (The other ending has it that he took her home a little while after the second weighing; she turned on her heel and said spitefully, “I've had a wousy evening.”) We've had a good deal of rain, conducive to reading, lately and I'm well into “The Tempering of Russia”; I like it immensely. If Ehrenburg's characterizations of the Russian people are as accurate as I am sure [pg 2] those of the Germans are, it is no wonder that they have put up such a magnificent fight. They know what they are fighting for. I'm glad you’re having a little tree, and that the ornaments arrived in good shape. Think you could take a picture of it - to send me? Yes, I think that's a swell idea about making up a Christmas bundle of discarded things - be sure to save anything that might be especially worth keeping for future brothers or sisters, tho! And I think we must be careful not to let anything of a patronizing attitude to slip into our giving of outgrown things - I've seen that in so many people. (I am not suspecting it of you.) I loved the cartoon from the New Yorker about native barbershops and think I'll paste it on the door of our own ditto. There's more truth than poetry in the drawings of haircuts. Darling - about the pajamas, I've been putting off sending them for two reasons: have only 2 pairs here (one must have got lost by the wayside), and they help keep mosquitos away; more especially, everything is so damp most of the time that I've been afraid that they’d be or smell mildewed when they reached you. But maybe I'll just send the pair I'm wearing now, even if they do have mud stains on them and a fresh rip in the back for you to repair, just so as not to postpone till after another laundering and wearing for a few more days as I've kept doing - Don't send the handkerchiefs; I have plenty to last me, and anything sent here will be stained [pg 3] or otherwise spoiled for civilian use. Did I tell you that Charlie, on his birthday a few weeks ago, received a very gaudy necktie from Helen? I thought it was a very pleasant gesture, and everybody enjoyed it. The description of Wendy's corner of the bedroom and your pride in it reminds me of Betty and Carl in Boulder. You see - time does go quickly. The Trolley Song…? You wrote, casually, of hearing some “Oklahoma” songs on the radio just about the same time I did…Thank you for the pansy from our garden, sweetie. The California seasons are almost as strange to us as these here are, no? You speak of sending cards from Wendy to Joan and Annette, David Ebling, the Ruhl babies - have you sent snapshots? I nominate the recent one entitled “Food tastes awfully good these days.” It's a wonderful picture. Would you rather spread your Christmas presents out over Christmas Day, just opening on thing Christmas Eve at six? Tell you what: eat an early supper, get all the presents out of the big boxes and look for the one that seems most special. That one you may open Christmas Eve, spacing the others. We'll see if you pick the one I'm thinking of. - Darling, I do so wish there were more; they seem so little to make up for such a lot. But I'll be thinking of you and doing a little unwrapping myself when you open that present - as well as the rest of the day. I'll be so eager to hear later how you [pg 4] spent the day. I am getting fruit juice now, sweetie; we have it every morning for breakfast and frequently for lunch and dinner too. Sometimes we have soup in addition, and two desserts, one of which is canned fruit. More often than not I come away from chow feeling a little stuffed - always mean to stop short of it, but I guess overeating is just an unconscious compensation for not having other things. Apart from being a little soft from lack of exercise, tho, I feel very well and have escaped all the small maladies which make the rounds from time to time - recently it was colds. Ascorbic acid tablets would be a good thing to take on an operation - i.e. for the initial stages when food is all C-ration and nothing fresh is available. Here, it's time for the lights to go out. More in the morning if I can squeeze it in before the Gooks begin firing questions or requests at me. I love rereading your letters, darling. And I love you doubly each time I do so. Warren
