Here it is Christmas Eve! Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I know that some of my letters home have taken a while to arrive, so it may be that my Merry Christmas letter home should more appropriately say “Happy Easter!”.
I have received several letters from home within the last few days, among them one written on November 24th. Well, good for me! (Another old Ed’ard’s saying of mine). I’ve really sweated that letter out, believe me. Letters have come and letters have gone, and all the while I have waited for this particular one because it was the first that Mom and Dad wrote after waiting 17 days to hear the “big news” about my job.
In other words, this was one letter I was especially anxious to receive. That’s probably why it took a full 30 days to get here! Incidentally, there’s one little question I want to ask Mom and Dad: Do you think the letter might have come over in less time if you had put a stamp on it? Ha Ha!!
Evidently it came over by boat. And it’s a wonder it came over at all! Mom and Dad finally put something over on the Post Office Department, didn’t they?
I’m afraid that Mom and Dad are disappointed to find so little in my letters (period) that has to do with the work I am doing. I may be allowed to tell say more about my job than I have so far, but not all at once. The news will have to be spread out over several months. That’s the way I did it in the M.P.’s, and it worked very nicely. At first Mom and Dad didn’t have the slightest idea of what I was doing, but after I had written a hundred or so letters – they knew still less! Maybe the less said the better. I wonder what Mom and Dad think.
One thing I can say about my job. I like it very much. It’s not exactly the job I had in mind when I went in, but that’s not a very good basis for comparison anyway. I’m not certain that I could have handled the job I had in mind at that time. So I’m perfectly satisfied with what I have now. “One in the hand is worth more than two in the brush”.
I can’t get over how quickly I’ve become used to doing this office work. I took to it like a duck takes to water, and it seems like it’s what I’ve always been doing. Yet two months ago M.P. work was very real to me. Very real!! When one of my M.P. friends meets me and says, “Do you really like your new work? Are you glad you made the change?”, I have a ready answer. “Are you kidding?”.
Mom and Dad think we boys in Northern Ireland are a little “high-tone”? Perhaps they’re right. I would be the last to deny that N.I. is one of the best places a soldier could hope to be stationed. And when I write home about Spam, rain, ginger snap shortages, etc. I’m only kidding. As they say in their letters, “I’ve got to write about something”. Besides, if I don’t tell them about all those things, they will never know very much about Army life. (And don’t say, “Is that bad?”!).
A few days ago I sent in $3.50 for a year’s subscription to that small, lightweight edition of TIME magazine. The copies the Army distributes to us are free; but there haven’t been any for two or three months. Now I can have a copy all my own, sent to me each week by first class mail. And at a cost of less than 7 cents a copy. In the states the regular edition is 15 cents. It looks like a swell deal to me.
P.S. I have begun to type my letters home. Unless Mom and Dad object too strenuously, I am going to type them all from now on. My handwriting isn’t so hot and the typewriter makes a better looking letter. It is also easier for me, takes less time, and gives me practice on the typewriter.
[letterstohome copyright 2008]