Saturday, which has a high priority. Saw Ethel Merman in Something for the Boys Sat. Pretty good but I was so sleepy as a result of giving my blood to the Red Cross that I heard more of it than I saw. After that night I didn’t feel any different, thought. It was rather interesting and I got a good meal of sandwiches out of it.
We’ve been having a little bit of excitement around here lately. The civilian coordinator of A.S.T.P. at Queens had become very unpopular with the boys, as a result of a few minor incidents, and one day about a week ago he was found hung in effigy with a knife in his back (the dummy’s back—not his). It was in most of the N.Y. papers and we were restricted for a month for showing “lack of discipline,” but the major later relented and we weren’t restricted at all—only scared. We promised to be good boys. And then we also had a small flu epidemic here, but it’s all over now and I’m left unfazed.26
I received the fudge in good condition and taste. Thank you very much. You still make the best fudge I’ve ever eaten, mother.
Do me a favor, willya? Get me a subscription to the Sunday Rep. And this time please get a subscription. Don’t send it yourself. I’d really like to have it and it’d only take about a day to get here.
All for now—by with Love –Carl
. . .
December 16, 1943
Dear Mom,
First of all, here’s your answers.
(1) Yes, the army gave me an overcoat seven months ago which weighs about eight pounds and should protect from anything from a king-sized hurricane to absolute zero. (2) The shirt situation is very well taken care of. I can wear either wool or cotton and have two of each. (3) Since I can’t find any answer to the question of who washes my socks, I decided to let you worry about it. Did you get them yet? (4) I haven’t the slightest intention of catching cold. We had trouble with flu around here, but it has gone away (5) There’s absolutely nothing I can think of that I need, except money. Oh, yes—you might send me a bag the size of a bag wrapped around 50 pounds of sugar that I can use for laundry. Just a small one, anyhow.
Howz the weather at home now? Do you know, it hasn’t snowed here once yet. But this school is located right on top of a hill and is supposed to be the coldest spot in Queens, which isn’t much of a distinction one way or another. Don’t we get a hell of a wind here. In fact, after standing here for fifty years all the buildings have developed a 20% list to leeward.
And on that note of whimsy we close this day’s report on Queens College.
With Love –Carl.
. . .
Jan 4, 1944
Tuesday
Dear Mom,
Am now at the local hamburg stand at 10:30 and bed check is at 11:00 so this will be a short letter, of necessity.
I’m still taking Edith out—the girl I told you about. We ate downtown in a Chinese restaurant, spent a couple hours looking through Greenwich Village, took a ferryboat ride to Staten Island and back, spent 12:00 in Times Square (crowded) and called it an evening.
Took her out Sat. and Sun. too and I’ll probably continue to do so for a long time. May be falling in love with her—can’t tell yet. (something for you to worry about)
‘Night and Love Carl
. . .
Jan 6, 1944
Thursday
Dear Mother,
I don’t know how I’ll be able to see Fred if the only time he gets off is on weekends. If I went directly from here to Chicago I wouldn’t get there til Sunday night—and if I came directly back to N.Y. at the end of the furlough, from Chicago I’d have to leave Saturday evening. Does he have Sat. afternoon off too? I’ll write him and we’ll see what the score is.
The $10 you sent me was a very sweet gesture—but hardly anything more. I finally broke down and bought myself a hat and a scarf which came to a total of $9.50. I’m going to have to buy a train ticket which will cost $15.00. It costs me from 75 cents to a dollar a day to keep living. The evening meal here is like your ten dollars—only a gesture—and laundry and dry-cleaning run me at least $1.50 a week, which means $25 a month if I did nothing at all on the weekends. So if you send me the $25 a month I asked for, that means I can spend about $5.00 a week-end. Because of the hat and the ticket and the rest of this month’s $25, I think it’d be an awfully good idea if you’d send me 35 or 40 bucks in a big hurry.
The reason I haven’t been writing so much lately is that for the past two weeks I’ve been doing what I should do before what I want to do and after I do what I should do (my lessons) there isn’t enough time to do what I want to do (write letters). For a while there I was doing what I wanted to do first, and that’s when you were getting a lot of letters. But for some strange reason I became conscientious again—not so many letters.
By the way, did you ever get my subscription to the Sunday Repository? I don’t think so—I’ve never received it. ‘Smatter?
Well, in spite of all your faults, I still love you. Keep your chin up. Love –Carl
P.S. I still need $40.00!
. . .
Figure 3-1. Queens College letterhead and envelope, Flushing, New York, January 6, 1944. Author collection.
Jan 28, 1944
Thursday
Dear Mother,
I’m going to leave here Sunday morning at 8:00—decided it is the best time. However, the train doesn’t go to Canton, only Alliance. So I’ll get in Alliance at 7:03 Sunday nite! I’ll take a bus to Canton from there, don’t bother to drive all the way over to get me. If you did you’d probably end up having a three hour wait or something.
We finished all our finals Monday, but still haven’t found out about them. We won’t know our grades for a month or so yet. I did find out about three, though—Math, English, and Geography. In Math I got about the fourth highest grade in our class and I’ll get an A in the course. In the English test I got the highest grade in the whole unit, but I’ll probably get a B in the course because I didn’t do too well in Speech. In Geography I got one of the highest grades in class, but don’t know what I’ll get—probably miss an A though.
I think I did pretty well on the other tests, too. Happy?
Be seeing you soon, with Love Carl
. . .
Feb 11, 1944
Thursday
Dear Mother,
We’ll be taking those aptitude tests for medical school I was telling you about, in a few days now. I’ll tell you more as soon as I learn. We still haven’t received last semester’s grades yet, by the way.
The
