Pay Day at the Mine
Dearest Gee.
Got three nice long letters from you yesterday honey, and one from Coe. I’m waiting for mail call now to see if I have any today. Your letters were dated Aug 19, 20, 21, and were all about Chick and Erv. Was sorry to hear he’s so nervous but suppose it’s just the reaction of getting home. Don’t suppose he knows quite what to do with himself yet but it sounds like he’s getting back in the groove if he’s starting to play ball already. Looks like I’ll be home sometime in November. It will still probably take that long to get all the rigamarole through with. That’s a bad time of the year to get home, isn’t it? Guess me and you can find something to do tho, can’t we? Catch up on a lot of bunk fatigue.
So Ervie got plotzed, huh. What for you want to get mad at him? Give the poor guy a break. I’ll bet the beer has been flowing free, hasn’t it?
Got a big kick out of the jokes you enclosed in the letter. There were some pretty good ones in there. If you have any more send them along.
Prosise and I went to see the show in town last night. It was that Mickey Rooney picture and boy it was sure a gloomy job. I don’t know what the name of it was as they write the titles in Norwegian. It was all about somebody dying all the time. First his dad died, and they were poor but proud. Then his brother goes to the army and gets himself killed. They sung church songs all the way through it. Did you ever see him in a picture like that? Had a cute little kid in it tho.
Well, honey, today is payday. I never have figured up what I get but I don’t think there will be much change in it. Don’t even know what my base pay is but I think it’s 84 bucks. Supposed to get paid in about half an hour. Think I’ll go see if the mail came in yet.
No mail today, kid. We got paid tho. I drew 327 kroner and 14 øre. That’s about 65 dollars and 40 cents. The club dues will take a nice rap out of it tho. But it’s worth it so I don’t mind. Got a pretty nice bunch of fellows there. Of course there is always the odd one or two that cause trouble.
Boy, I’ll bet these next couple of months will be long ones. It seems like each day gets longer. It won’t be because of the sun either. It gets dark here now around nine-thirty. It’s plenty daylight tho for reveille, that’s at six-forty five.
Are we going on a trip when I get home, even if it is cold weather? We should go somewhere and kinda relax a little, don’t you think?
Well, guess I’ll have to stop this off now. Really not much news anyway. I sure love you honey, and miss you awful. Hope I see you soon.
So long now.
Snook
I’m fairly certain the film that Snook describes seeing is the 1943 picture, The Human Comedy, starring Mickey Rooney. The narrator is a deceased paterfamilias, Rooney’s older brother goes off to war, and Wikipedia lists a number of songs used in the film which would at least loosely qualify as “church songs”.
Letters From Snook 