16 November L44
U.S.S. Prairie
Dearest family,
I was glad to hear that my birthday card and wedding day greetings arrived on the proper date. Today is dad's birthday & think about the first day a couple of days on his special date.
I received letters from Van over weather this afternoon and two from dad yesterday. Also recently got another gift subscription card from dad for Reader's Digest. There's no doubt now that I am well fixed for literature. At first I was terribly hungry for some good reading material. Now I'm a "voracious magazine counter" - but I love it. So far I've received several Life magazines in fancy editions, are Life and will begin the Readers digest soon. Eventually I've fallen in love with "time". I'll attend about trips with me - since it come from Pearl Harbor (Honolulu) it gets to me in about a weeks time - less than a letter from home. No advertising makes reading much easier - we hunting around for continued pages and also it covers the week so clearly.
"Pap" just went up - about 5 minutes before colors. I'm writing this up on the forecastle where it's nice and breezy. Evening is the only time it ever blows around here I - except for an occasional storm, and everyone takes advantage of it.
We're having a good movie on board tonight. Abbot and Costello in "Society" or something like that. It will be crowded but well worth it. We have movies regularly. They keep us from going completely (here) crazy
lately we've had some pretty good ones. French Creek, Kismet - we see all the good ones and also the bad ones. I've never been able to decide whether pictures like "Kismet" are actually good for morale. They certainly leave the men in a worse far war condition - but as I said before they keep us from going Asiatic.
I missed running into Ralph Sawyer by a hair's breadth the other day. His ship was in and he was over on a recreation party to the beach - I could have gone, just turned down the offer at the last minute. One of my chums in the Prairie band saw him and carried his greetings to me. I could have slept myself - I bowed even ashave in five months and bungle a swell opportunity - grrr -
I could have made S 1/c a long time ago but didn't know how simple it was. I thought I'd have to go thru all sorts of crazy routines and kept putting it off. The truth was, it was very simple since I am a radio striker. I hope to go up for radioman 3rd within the next couple months. Now looking still further for me - around the 1st of January - naturally I hope not - I'll be a great landlubber and slow me up about three months. There's hoping - - -
The working party is bringing on some great big hunks of meat - after three weeks on dry atore these fresh provisions really look good.
How about some more pictures - I enjoy them a lot
Lots of love
Bud
s/c