Sunday evening,

Dear Folks:

I ran out of stationary so I borrowed this from one of the boys. It is pretty good and a bit cleaner than my own.

We had a very slow day today. Nothing at all to do all day. Since we are still in quarantine there was no church or movies for us. We spent the time between the barracks and the day room. Played some ping pong, and read all the paper I am the ping pong champ of the battery and have only lost two games since I started. Today we had to put our name and serial number on our barracks log. It was quite a job because the logs are bulky and the letter had to be stenciled on.

Two more of the boys went to the hospital today. They had a little ____ and fever and were taken away so as not to contaminate the others. The boys seem to be having a lot of colds. I am quite lucky, having had a cold when I went in and gotten rid of it. Have had no trouble at all since I’ve been here and feel quite smug about it. We all hope the quarantine ends soon so we can get to the movies or go to town. Most likely there isn’t much to do in Tacoma outside of walking around. But we would like to get in anyway and I especially would like to try and see Bell Walton. Until this quarantine is lifted that will be impossible.

We are going to love a show here this week. The star of the show is going to be the fellow I bunk with. He is the “yardbird” of our battery. He is always getting us trouble and never seem to do anything right. He is the funniest guy I have ever ran into and always provide us with laughs. We wouldn’t know what to do without him. He is from Brooklyn and talks with a regular Brooklyn accent. The fellows talked him into going in the show and he is going to take the part of the officer in charge. He is the exact opposite of a real soldier and we are all looking forward to the performance. All he has to do is act natural and be well funnier than Charlie Claflie. He makes everybody laugh so much that the fellows have to take their minds off their troubles. I’ll tell you one thing he actually did. He was walking with a broom slung over his shoulder like a rifle and he saw an officer. He knew he had to salute but he didn’t know what to do with the broom. So he put his hand over the broom as you do in the regular rifle salute. The officer was so annoyed that he returned the salute. After, he recovered he took the jerks name and put him on detail. He has had more detail then anybody in the camp. He is like Goldstein, I guess.

Some of the fellows are taking pictures with their cameras. I may try to borrow one of these some day and take my picture. I thought I would warn you in advance so you will be prepared for what may come. I was nibbling away at Helen’s candy all day and it is about gone. Anytime you want to send me more I will be glad to get it. It keeps very well and tastes as good now as it did when it first came. Helen is quite a cook and I sure do like to eat her stuff. Come to think of it now, I don’t know but that Ma made it for me. I imagine Ma has lots of leisure time now that Aunt Nell is with us. No more midnight lunches to make up or thermos bottle to be filled. By the way what has happened to the good old bottle? It gave me lots of nice drinks at about three in the morning and I was sure glad to have it. I guess it is retired now and is getting a well-deserved rest.

I have heard nothing from Bell Walton. I sent a letter to his old address and hope that it is sent to his present location. I am going to write to Simpson and learn about where he is going and how he is making out. He wrote me a nice letter when he was in Wisconsin and I ought to return the favor.

There are about eight guys around my bunk now heckling my bunk-mate. It is pretty hard to concentrate with all the racket going on so I will have to close. Some harmonizing us is on top for tonight as it has been for the past week or so. We have a group of about four fellows who like to sing and we really make a lot of noise. We sound good to ourselves and the rest of the boys haven’t thrown us out yet. So we will keep going until something happens. Hope you are all well and that somebody went to church in my place today.

So long,

Joe

P.S. I have 24 air-mail envelopes on hand. Don’t send anymore for a while. Thanks