Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-10-27 | Page 37 | Spangler Rejoins 145th in France

SPAM REJOINS 145TH 1 FRIGE Corporal Writes Parents of Experiences in Talking to French Girls. Corporal Ralf F. Spangler, son of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Spangler. is back with the 145th field artillery, first Utah, In France. Corporal Spangler went overseas over-seas attached to the radio service special school detachment, 40th division, and has been abroad since August 20. He was a member of the 145th when the regiment was in training at Camp Kearny but was sent to FTance detached from the artillery. Corporal Spangler writes to 'his parents par-ents as follows: "At last the deluge. Tuesday evening came a car load of mail and I received my full share. There were about thirteen letters from you. dating from before I left Kearny to the day I left Mills. No letters from you yet acknowledging receipt re-ceipt of my letters from this side. Those letters certainly read good. The clippings clip-pings are still being passed around. Keep up the line of communication at all costs. "Aside from the letters, life has pursued pur-sued the even tenor of Its way. We spend most of the days in hikes with a nice heavy pack about the count ry. Haven't gone on one yet that we didn't get lost in the maze of roads. This coun-try coun-try is like a park in "the states, lots of trees and crass. If it wasn't for the packs the bike would be a pleasure. I manage to enjoy them anyway. "Have finally broken into French society. so-ciety. Through medium of a French interpreter in-terpreter we were enabled to make a social so-cial call on one of the best families In town. The participants were I-anonette. interpreter. Corporal F. T. Mulvey and myself. We called t 7 o'clock and stayed until 10:30. The madame, whose name I can't pronounce, helped us 'parley 'par-ley voo' and we got along nicely. At 7:30 In came three young mademoiselles, all good looking. Oh, how deeply did I feel the lack of a language. I was Introduced In-troduced Jn French and bowed low and saldf 'Kerosine oil and pork chops." That was accepted as the proper thing for an American to say. and I received a volley in response, to which T held up my. hands hopelessly and said. 'Xon compree. "We paired off with a full equipment of dictionaries and paper, and went into an exhaustive study of French. T learned a g'ood deal, through sheer desperation, because be-cause there were an awful lot of things I wanted to tell that girl. Succeeded pretty pret-ty well, but oh, how I did murder that language. The girl helped me make up a nice little speech to the madame. thanking thank-ing her for .her hospitality, which I read off at the end of the affair and scored a tremendous success. The local Y. M. C. A. secretary dropped in and helped parley voo. "Then came the chaperons for the girls. They are strong on chaperons in this country. When we all got to parleying parley-ing at once, tongues and hands going full speed, we made the tower of Babel look ill. Reluctantly we parted finally and we are going to repeat the experience as soon as our interpreter can get us another an-other invitation. , "And that is 'feenish' for my experiences experi-ences up to date. I ain now going to write to the rest of the relatives. "By the way. thanks for that stick of gum enclosed in one of your letters. I was sorely in need of a 'chew' and it came as a godsend. I 'chawed' on it for three days. I accidentally swallowed It yesterday, yes-terday, and I mourned its loss as I would that of a dear relative."