I received another swell letter from my brother, Cleon. I appreciate his taking the time to write me so often. I suppose he’s very busy with one thing and another, just as I was last year.
Everything is buzzing over here, as might be expected. There was a very interesting article in the paper yesterday called “Occupational Hazards”. It seems that the chairborne troops have had their first casualty. One of the paragraph-troopers broke 2 fingers when his typewriter jammed unexpectedly. Too bad. But, what the hell, this is WAR!
Every new day brings us a new angle on the second front. One paper editorialized: “Speaking of the second front, boys, remember, it’s Leap Year!”. Maybe they’ve got something there (but I doubt it). All this talk about a second front reminds me of a steak I had last week. What a tussle! That was by all odds the toughest steak I ever bit into and couldn’t let go of. After 10 minutes of harassing tactics, which served to wear him down and tire him out, I delivered the “coup de grace”. Steaks are much too scarce to give up without a fight.
Did you hear the one about the soldier who said, “What a New Year’s Eve celebration! That’s one night I’ll never remember!”?
I’ve written home before speaking about Joe. He’s a very smart boy. I told him that Cleon was putting in some time on qualitative analysis and also some calculus. Joe has completed 2 years of junior college and is familiar with both subjects. He assumed that Cleon was attending college, and was very surprised when I told him that Cleon was still a senior in high school. Joe took qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis in his second semester of college chemistry. He said it wasn’t any picnic. Paulsen used to tell our class about it too. (We didn’t listen to him, though).
Joe didn’t find calculus difficult for himself, but said he could see where some people might have trouble with it. I’ll wager I’d have trouble with even algebra now. This army is making a dumb-bell out of me. It’s not easy to keep up on things like that if you don’t use them regularly in your work or otherwise.
I expect my accounting course to come any week now. Joe and I went to the library the other night and I found some books on bookkeeping and accounting. Very elementary material so I’m using it as a review for the next section of my correspondence course, which is Auditing Procedure. I’m anxious to find out how much I’ve forgotten about the subject in the past year. Not too much, I hope.
So I wonder if the income tax has my folks and my bother in its grips. I wonder how much Cleon is going to have to shell out. I’ve been wondering why he didn’t “pay-as-you-went”. Maybe he didn’t you make enough in any one job to come under the plan. I have advised Cleon to be sure to use the simplified income tax form. It automatically allows him deductions equal to 6% of his income. Or at least it did last year. Very few taxpayers can qualify for deductions in excess of that. So, Cleon and dad had better get a tax instruction book and get to work.
I’ve got a letter written now for Cleon, but I’m in doubt as to whether I should mail it. In his December 22nd letter he said, “I was sick when your letter came, and became worse as time passed”. They have that effect on most people. I can’t figure it out.
[letterstohome copyright 2008]