I’m at the Aero Club, as I have been nearly every night since coming here (Jayne likes that! – doesn’t want me “fraternizing” with the English lasses). Bob, Herb, and I worked all of today, having taken our day off in the middle of the week. It’s nearly ten now and beginning to get dark. We are somewhat south of Belfast’s longitude here – it gets dark earlier – and we set our clocks back an hour last Sunday – now have just one hour of daylight saving, which will probably be lost sometime in October. (Jayne and I were thoroughly disgusted the way it stayed light so late in N.I. – I knew her and went out with her smack-dab in the middle of summer’s (?) longest days – one could often have read a newspaper outdoors at 12:30, were one so inclined!)
But I’m not in Ireland tonight! Have had two strong cups of coffee and some raisin-less raisin bread here at the club since supper-time. I sort of got into the habit of having tea and sandwiches about now back there in N.I. you know. One can’t break such a habit, just like that!
I’ll be darned if I don’t see myself getting back into some of my old habits, concerning my spare time. Jayne upset them completely for a while, but I notice them cropping up again! Take this evening, for example. I have knocked off 35 pages of the April Reader’s Digest and attended a concert of recorded classical music in the club “lounge”. That’s the Vern Mackliet of yesteryear, not last month! Don’t necessarily like to go back to those things, but I must do something to occupy my leisure hours (they are not too numerous here anyway). I spend a lot of time writing — this pen and ink business is slow as hell for me, and I write Jayne as often as I write home (it won’t last, though – I don’t think!?) That girl writes pages and pages to one – takes an hour to read one letter – she’s very clever in her correspondence – knows just what to say to make me want to return to N.I. in a hurry!
I turned a worn-out tie into the supply room and got a fairly decent one back for a change. The Army seems to be very short of clothing in this area.
We have two officers in our department and a few days ago I learned that one was from Spokane. So we talked the whole thing over – for a Spokane boy, I surely don’t know much about the city, I’ve forgotten most of what I learned those few months. Anyway, the lieutenant said Euclid & Mansfield are in his neighborhood — his home is on Augusta. He mentioned Nora and N. Adams but I don’t recall where they are. He was ass’t. manager of one of the Penny stores in Spokane and seemed to know Ferald Dell. Was surprised to hear that Dell was in the Army.
[letterstohome copyright 2008]