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106 [mislabeled - should be 206] Navy #3247 (Mil. Govt) FPO San Francisco Wed. 25 April 9 pm Darling, darling, darling- I feel alive again, capable of feeling the flowers and the children and the hurt of our separation instead of just noticing them impassively as I walked briskly by in pursuit of some objective or other - and all because I took a couple of days off and got away from here (just two blocks, in fact) and did nothing except load. It is really good to feel alive, and I wouldn't miss even the precious hurt of being away from you, because it's an intimate and inseparable part of being with you in feeling. Don't get the idea that I was going nuts or really getting sick - it was [pg 2] a very gradual process of growing stale and over-preoccupied with work, so that even work itself ceased to be interesting. As you can see, I've met that small crisis with the necessary adjustment, and am not likely to get quite so wrapped up in things again. My note of last night must have sounded a little disconnected - I’d just had some cough medicine with codeine in it and felt very sleepy. I went to Sick Bay - the new hospital for civilians, which has limited accommodations for MG personnel - on Monday morning after work. I had a slight fever and was a little dizzy, and when I mistakenly heard the corpsman say I had a temperature of 106°, I actually believed him [pg 3] for about ten minutes, when I came to my wits and checked up again (was then told 101.6, later 100.6). In that ten-minute interval I was so impressed with the virtue of taking care of one's health that when the doctor suggested (Saying that he wouldn't insist) that I go to bed for a day or two, I very readily complied. So I had two excellent night's sleep (made doubly certain with [nembutol?]), loafed around all day Tuesday; took a sunbath, read the last half of Emily Hahn. Reading itself was good for me and I've resolved to get back to that diversion too as much as possible. I enjoyed the book much more in the last part, incidentally, than [pg 4] in the first; I think I could sit down and read it thru again. I could see, too, why you found it such good reading. An X-ray of my chest (to be repeated a week from now) showed a slight bronchitis, traceable - Dr. Levy said, and he has much the same condition - to the nasal irritation whose symptom is that over frequent, embarrassing habit of clearing my throat. The source of the irritation is a small polyp, possibly another or two farther back out of sight (for the instruments he was using) inside the nasal passage. In a week or two he may send me down to the big hospital where Rhein is for outpatient treatment. Doesn't know whether the nose and throat man there will remove the polyp: some doctors say it isn't worthwhile [pg 5] because it may grow back. But I'm going to follow up and have the business cleared up if possible; it isn't serious, of course, and the bronchitis caused by it is just temporary, but it's been annoying me for so many years now that it would be a great relief to get rid of it. - Levy also said, somewhat to my gratification, that smoking has little to do with the irritation unless it's more than a pack a day. Tonight I've already wrapped a package to mail you tomorrow (A fairly heavy one about 10” square and 8” high - some rather common but usable merchandise salvaged from the stockroom of a shop in town) and have also assembled the 3 fattest letters you ever saw for [pg 6] Muz, M and F and Grandfather, each containing a copy of the Cottrell letter, one of the Star-Bulletin article, a picture of me and 2 or 3 pages of personal letter. Pausing to stick on the Special stamp reminds me that I learned recently, with pleasure and the easing of a slightly (very slightly) guilty conscience, that Sammy gets at least 9¢ out of every special he delivers. It was 9¢ when the total rate was 10¢; I suspect that it's still the same and that the added 3¢ is a special wartime revenue. You may wonder what I did with the job, with Tel away. I just turned it over to Arthur Smith - came [pg 7] back Monday and spent an hour outlining things to be done before returning to Sick Bay and going to bed. Was back at school this afternoon to find everything under control (Chuūgakkō wired for 4 bulbs, stage 2/3 built, foundation laid for manual training building, letter written to police dept. about our apprehending two men swiping school lumber from the [siuji?] in my absence, supply report in…) I'll be back full time tomorrow, but will take it easy. Time for bed, darling I love you Warren At every reference to Carola and her doings I pictured Wendy
