France
Good morning, dear--
I somehow feel like Voltaire or Ben Franklin as I sit down and sharpen my two pencils each day with my vicious jack-knife. Like sharpening quills, I guess. Yes, it’s the same knife I bought that day in Abilene—better known in the company as my “pig-sticker.”
It has become necessary to steal paper to write on, but I don’t hesitate to do it. In fact I enjoy the thrill of walking into the office and filtching stationery from under the very eyes of the nurse! I got a whole pad of it this morning, heh, heh!
Today’s sick report: stitches (about 10 of them) were removed yesterday. Wound is closed but tender. Have on a tight bandage now and am using my arm all I can. I am enjoying life here far too much to have it mend so fast!
Yes, life here is pretty close to Utopia. I have told you about 1) our complete leisure to read, think, and talk 2) my wonderful daily hot bath with the tub over half full of water 3) the interesting chow. But have I mentioned the fruit juice? I have just all I can drink. At the officers’ mess it is on the table for all meals, and at least once a day I go out to the kitchen and ask for a can to take to my room. It comes in cans of a quart or more – grapefruit, orange, or a blend of the two. It’s really great.
Today is PX day, and it has added to my mellow mood to the tune of 4 candy bars, 8 packs of cigarettes, 2 packs of gum and sundries. I just never had it so good – except when we were together. You know, the thing I do best of all is loaf. Actually, I should have inherited a fortune – I make such a good man of leisure. These other poor souls run out of thoughts in a few days and fret for action. Poor bourgeois mentality! Was it Carl Sandberg who said “I loaf, and give my soul a chance?”
[Perhaps Walt Whitman, Song of Myself:
If I did have that fortune, I’d do just about what I plan to anyway—but with less hurry and with more attention to taste and finesse and refinement.
Can’t help but feel I am the cause of the cigarette shortage in the States. I have about 19 packs on hand now as the result of gifts and rations only. Have had a good chance to judge the brands impartially. And right now Lucky Strikes seem to be in the lead – even over our own Chesterfields. You can’t tell any difference in taste, but L.S.’s seem to have an observable superiority in shape. Packed tighter, rounder, firmer, more fully packed, etc. My observations continue, tho, and I have come to no final conclusions.
It always takes a long time for mail to start coming to men in the hospital. So it’s no fault of the home front that at present I haven’t the slightest idea what the situation has been at home since Christmas. It does leave me out of touch with things, tho, so it is hard for me to talk about anything but what I do and think. Just because I can’t talk about Keene and you folks, do not conclude that I am not thinking of you all and wondering like everything what is going on. You know I think of you all the time, Hon, and am also interested in what our other friends do. Will be glad to get that stack of letters. I love my honey more that she knows.
All my love,
Wallace
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