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Show HrHl.Phi1pr jy THE PAPERS OF PRIVATE PL'RKEY Dear Ma Well you will laff at this ma but the army has Jearned me how to make a bed. If I get out of this war . safe and back in y'f plain close no VjC' matter how bad Z'S ne employment - X"1 situashun is I can h-)rTlf-J;'t a chambermade. tsJS-'j 'rJQ Making beds is thought I would be a expert at but it is one of the first things you get instructed at in a draft camp. I never paid no attention all my life to bed making. I just got out in the morning and from all I knew It was all done automatically but I am now a first class bed maker and some nice girl could use me as a housekeeper. I no this will surprise you more than anything tho mom when I tell you I am a Grade A dishwasher. They call this kitchen police detail but I do not know where the police part comes in as I never seen no cop doing dishes but they tell me in the army that they call any dirty work police work. Well anyhow I put in a hole day washing dishes and if you ever ask me to help with the pots and, pans hereafter and I refews I will apolergize becuz it will be a picknick compared to what washing dishes is up here. You don't wash a plate at a time. You wash 'em in bunches and you have to be a combernashun Japaneze jugler, kitchen canary and all around mop-per-upper. I have got so good at it that if I had a race with a electric dish washing machine it would take a photo to pick the winner. The breakage is not heavy which is a big disserpointment as I would like to bust more than I do but the crockkery they use in the army is more like cement lawn furniture. You can drop a coffee cup on the floor and it will bounce rite back and hit you on the jaw. I dropped a saucer yesterday and it made a hole in the floor big enough for two men to go threw. I never new there was so many dishes in the army and believe me I never seen no physical training that hardens muscles like just lifting army china. I know a private who dislocated two ribs lilting a saucer. The sergeant says the dishes are just for eating but he can't fool me. If war comes they will be used for throwing. My hand and arms up to the rist is all pink and puffy from being in the hot water so many hours at a ?JiBS) stretch and when sKj? M I can't sleep now gSBSTjpj I don't count Ijggfcik'j sheep I just count WifKSF dirty dishes. I EIgjgBj)xjr had a terrible ggjjjlp dream last night. I dreamed I had to do all the pans and broilers all over a second time. You know how the pans and broilers are all stuck up after a big Thanksgiving Thanks-giving dinner at home, ma, well there is twice as much goo on 'em up here and I think the skipper puts a coat of hard varnish over it to make It all the harder. I do not like it much as it does not seem to have much glammer and in all the stories I read about war heroes I never noticed a dish washer being mentioned. The sergeant ser-geant says Napoleon started as a dish washer washing French pastery dishes witch is why they call him Napoleon but he is kidding I gess. ... All the boys is talking about the rumor that this training will last longer than a year, maybe for two .years but I wud not mind it so mutch pervided I could go home winters as the life the last winter was so tuff even those Finns 'Ould of been soar. I see Washington says the report is strictly balony but most of us has our fingers crost becus the lease lend bill is passed and anybody any-body knows that nobody who borrows bor-rows anything ever gives it back under un-der a couple of years. ... Anyway ma do not worry as I am still okay except for soar feet, a bad hangnail and a little touch of newmonnia but I am so busy washing wash-ing dishes that it takes my mind off my suffering. Your loving son, Oscar. ... GOTHAM GLIMPSES Greenwich Village: Where poets write rhymes of wagon wheels, Harpies, hams and Cuban heels. ... Times Square: Where yokels vie with touts and shills. Sirens, hot dogs, bars and grills. ... City Hall Park: Where typist, tramp and newshawk mellow Bask near the shrine of Fiorello. |