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Show Kathleen Norris Says: Before You Write to Him Think Bell Syndicate. WNU Features. He also married an English girl, whose feet, after five years of war privations, priva-tions, were probably solidly on the ground. LETTERS FROM HOME Fighting men have enough to endure without having to read about the "hardships" back home. They depend a great deal on letters from home to keep up their morale. When these letters are merely a constant con-stant recital of complaints about shortages and rationing, difficulties of travel, and the scarcity of interesting young men, they may be worse than no letters at all. To the man at the front, tired and homesick, and living in constant peril, these sort of let-ters let-ters are just one more burden. He would be better off without with-out them. By KATHLEEN NORRIS "A rY FOLKS write me I so much about trou- 1 V 1 ble that I'll be dar-gonned dar-gonned if I want to go home again," writes Private Tom vVilloughby, from a post somewhere some-where in northern England. "It's got so bad," the letter goes on, "that I kind of hate to open the letters! My mother, moth-er, my father, my sisters, all write me as if they'd be glad to change places with me. I wish they could, for a few weeks. I was in the hospital four weeks, I didn't write them anything about that until un-til I was almost well. I've been over German towns in a bomber seventeen times. I've been wet and cold and scared and hungry more than once, and horr7ick all the time. But my letters aren't half as depressing as theirs are. "It's all rising prices and shortages short-ages and manpower scarcity and how dull the town is in wartime, with no men to dance with and no gs to go anywhere. They tell me thst the fellows who aren't in the service are getting a long head start on me in business, and that Roger and Bat have just bought darling homes out in the new development and that both their wives are having hav-ing babies. Ma writes me about her arthritis, and Dad about his business busi-ness troubles; the girls don't write often, but when they do it's one long yelp about not having anything to do, nor any fun, and wishing the rotten old war was over! My sisters are 17 and 15; I am 19. "You don't know how it makes us feel, out here, to know that there's so much trouble at home. Every fellow fel-low I know wants to get home, dreams of baked beans and Main street, the local newspaper and the familiar faces. To have the lucky ones, who can stay there, knocking it all the time, is about the limit! Sometimes I think I'll make a fresh start on my own, when I get home, and live In some other place. I know all news can't be good, but I should think they could pick out enough that was decent to sort of buck us up over here." Tom, I think so too. And I know many mothers and wives who do manage to keep their letters cheerful cheer-ful and inspiring. How eagerly and with what passionate delight those letters are received by our lonely, far-away boys, only those boys know. Your molhor nnd father and sisters not only should select for you whatever pleasant news there is, but tliry should do something to build it up. I mean they should definitely plan something for your homecoming that will mean a real welcome for you. One mother who wrole me had taken the room over the family garage unci turned 11 Into a study for her son, where he can some day ask his friends to drop in for talking talk-ing and smoldng; his own especial part of the house, not to bo used by anyone else. licfnro ho went away he shared a room wllh a younger brother. Another mother and father and sis ter have bought three small farms, one each for their absent boys. Still another devoted family is going to present their boy when he comes home with a substantial bank account, ac-count, enough to give him a three-years-start on the career he has always al-ways dreamed of as an architect. When one of our boys came home suffering from a nervous complaint a few months ago, his parents sent him, his brother, a hound dog and two horses up into the Sierras for a long summer. He went thin and trembling and nervous, he came home last week as hard as iron, and brown as an Indian. He already has a good job. "All that costs money," protest the whining voices. Of course it costs money! But surely saving for the boy's return, and if possible a definite plan for that return, is the least we can do. A thousand dollars, dol-lars, five hundred even one hundred hun-dred dollars ought to be awaiting him, to save his pride, to give him time to look about him for his work in the new world. Three Times a Day! An engaged girl. Dean Davis, writes me the other side of the picture. She is so deeply in love that she writes her Georgie two and three times a day. Georgie is out somewhere In the Fhillipines. Three times a day, I think, is too much. Especially as Georgie probably prob-ably gets these letters in bunches of 30 or 40. Glad as he is to know that he is so constantly in your thoughts, there is a certain amounl of boredom involved In opening 30 oi 40 letters that all say the same thing. Three times a week is beltei than three times a day, and a good healthy Inclusion of clippings from tho newspaper nnd from magazines will give him more pleasure than too much love milking. One girl ol whom I heard wrote such incessant and poetical letters to her young man that he answered by asking her not to expect him to match quotations from Coventry ratmorc or to tell her which of Millay's poems he lilted best. lie nlso married mar-ried mi KukIIsIi i;lii, whose feet, niter live years of war privations, were proliulily solidly tin the ground. What we all have to do Is to try to put ourselves in the places ol these lonely, homesick, hard pressed buys, and contribute whnl wo can to their comfort, with theii needs, rather than our own, In view. N ' ' i IT 'I ry to eieer hint tip. ... 'l ' |
