Sunday morning,

February 6, 1944

Dear folks,

I just got back from church and I thought I would drop you a few lines. It is about 11 o’ clock now and we had mass at 9 o’ clock. Since coming back I have been hanging around the day room, listening to the radio and looking at a few magazines. There isn’t much work to do today so I might as well spend the time writing. I haven’t been doing much writing at all lately so I have quite a lot to catch up on.

As I told you in my letter yesterday I am somewhere in New England and feeling good. I weigh just about the same now as I always did so the army hasn’t put on any weight or made me lose any.

Our mail hasn’t caught up with us yet so I don’t know just what all of you are doing. Perhaps we will have some today or tomorrow. The last one I received was the letter Dad wrote to me about Bill Walton being home. So if you asked me anything after that letter, you’ll know why I am not answering it.

I still have the picture of Dennis with me as well as those snapshots you sent to me while I was in Fort Lewis. Do you remember taking them? I have all of them yet as well as those pictures of Ma in her uniform. I took out my collection last night and enjoyed looking through all of them once more. My favorite one is still the picture of Ma holding up my old saddle shoes. I still get quite a laugh out of that one- it reminds me about the times I used to holler at Ma for getting rid of those old gray shoes I had. They were pretty bad I will have to admit.

I sent a box home just before we left California which you probably have by now. It contains some personal things that I didn’t want to carry around with me, flashlight, toilet articles etc. Incidentally, I mailed it collect and I hope won’t mind. The mail clerk said it was easier for him that way so again I hope you don’t mind.

Did I ever tell you that I had received a nice box from Aunt Cyrella? Will you do me a favor and thank her for it? I enjoyed it very much and want her to know I appreciate all the trouble she went through to make it up.

Well I hope Dad gets in on that raise the railroads are supposed to get. He deserves it if anybody does because nobody I ever ran across knew more about railroads than Dad does. I’m kinda proud of my father.

Now I’ll say so long for a while and write to Charlie, Simpson, O’Brien and Tom. That means a long afternoon so I’ll close now.

Love,

Joe