Home Front to Battlefront. Frank Lavin

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СКАЧАТЬ a Hudson Bay, too, because I don’t need it here and I have an idea you’ll be needing it there with us coming home.¹⁴ However, I’ll hang all the soiled stuff up and give it an airing out while I’m home.

      I’m getting a lot of sleep these last two weeks so don’t tell me I look like a fugitive from Molly Stark [mental institution] when I get home. I’m going to have a good time when I get home because this will be the last time us kids (we kids) will be together.

      I’m awfully anxious to get home. Just thinking about it gets me all excited (pant, pant). The only thing I don’t like about it is going around saying “hello” to everyone. Why don’t all you mamas get together and work out some kind of a system whereby all that will be done away with?

      By the way, ask Daddy if he knows any way of finding out about all the different kinds of services in the army and how they differ. I’d like to decide pretty soon what branch I want, because I probably won’t be here after this semester. Love –Carl

      . . .

      Carl was back at school after the holidays. As the school year went by, the boys were disappearing; classes were constantly dwindling in size due to enlistments and call-ups. Indeed, in the course of the war, some five thousand Miami men and women served in uniform.¹⁵

      Carl’s enthusiasm of the first semester gave way to a sober pragmatism. War or no war, he needed money and food.

      Figure 1-1. Carl’s Miami transcript, with a strong first semester and a devil-maycare second semester. Author collection.

      . . .

      Jan. 1943

      Wed.

      Dear Mom,

      Here I am, back again in the old grind. Everything’s just the same here—except that some of the guys aren’t around any more.

      I didn’t get my laundry yet. I hope you sent some pajamas along. I only have one pair. My pecuniary supply is also alarmingly low. When are you going to start sending the remittances? And don’t forget the $2.00 raise—due to the increase in the cost of living down here.

      We arrived in Oxford at 3:00 instead of 6:00 and didn’t have to wait at all in Lima. Just after we got there a train came in going to Hamilton—so we took it and we came into Oxford on a bus.

      Nothing exciting happened on that trip except that I lost my hat.

      I narrowly missed serious injury yesterday from a violent explosion. I opened my mailbox and the door almost blew off under the concentrated pressure of two weeks of Repositories. When is that supply shipment coming? This is the first time in three months that we haven’t carried at least something in the larder. The whole third floor is complaining. I started off the new year here with a complete new leaf. I shifted the beds and chairs around until now we have an entirely different floor plan. Charming effect—charming.

      Well, s’all now. I’ll be waiting to hear from you—in several different ways.

      Love –Carl

      . . .

      In January, Carl all but stopped serious academic work. As he explained later, all the guys were waiting to be called up, so they mainly played poker all day. The view was “it’s going to happen any day” so students just didn’t go to class. This wasn’t something that Carl’s mom liked to hear, but Carl, being Carl, wrote about it anyway.

      . . .

      February 1943

      Dear Mother,

      I can see that everything is going along very nicely back home. You seem quite serene, in fact. I think that what you need is a good war job. You need something to take care of all that spare time. I can just see you every day trying to look busy. It’s bad for you to just sit around. You start thinking up ideas—such as buying stock. I’m surprised that daddy let you buy all that much and especially at that price. The market is about normal now but after the war it will go way down. If it gets around nine you’d better sell it. And don’t buy any stock from my savings. That means “do not.”—in other words, no. I am trying to convey a negative impression in regards to your buying more (RCA) stock for me. I trust it registered. But don’t sell it either—unless it gets over eleven. By the way, I bought it at 5-1/2, not 4-1/2. Why don’t you just buy bonds with all that surplus money? If you’ll remember, every time in the past twenty years that you’ve had money you’ve invested it. Every time you’ve invested in, you’ve lost it. All of which leads to one conclusion.

      I am now a pledge at Zeta Beta Tau [Jewish fraternity]. We have only six pledges this year. It’s a lot of fun and I think I’ll go active if I have the chance.

      I still don’t know when I’m going into the army. But I’m doing very little work and cutting a lot of classes, so it had better be before grades come out again. I don’t have much to do with myself and I’m really enjoying it down here. Maybe I’ll come home the week-end of the 20th. But don’t expect me. I probably won’t.

      I just got the worst haircut of my life. I look like an egg-head now. It’s a combination of a bowl and a butch. Gives a rather startling effect.

      I’m not dating the gentile girl any more. It was her idea, but I guess it was all for the best.

      Could you please send quite a lot of extra money? There’s a prom coming up—lot of things are doing that week-end. Since you’ve got so much you don’t know what to do with it, I’ll help you spend it. Really, though, I need it—Soon as possible.

      Our supplies are running pretty low, too. Please don’t send any Swiss cheese this time. Don’t we have American anymore? And tell me, what all has Sugardale cut out, and what’s going on there, and what’s been changed? Please tell me.

      Has Spitzy gotten any older? Give me some more home town news.

      All my Love –Carl

      . . .

      Sun, Feb. 21, 1943

      Dear Mom,

      Well, here it is Sunday—and everything’s all over. I went through more complications just getting Alice down here (for the prom). Stop worrying so much.

      I needed the extra ten dollars to join Phi Eta Sigma, the freshman’s honorary.

      What prompted that heavy barrage of character-building? I don’t know what I said but it must have been something—I was probably joking about something. Anyways it was unnecessary. If you’ll remember while I was at home going to Lehman, and had the benefit of innumerable lectures, I stood at about the middle of my class. While here, where I am on my own, I am doing considerably better.

      And now for your question: Meteorology doesn’t interest me—I don’t intend to get stuck in some boring hole for two years. When are you sending some more food? I also need towels and handkerchiefs.—Love Carl

      P.S. The prom was pretty good. Had a swell time this weekend.—Still nothing definite about the E.R.C. I’ll let you know as soon as something happens.

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