July 24, 1945

San Marcos

July 24, 1945

Dear Mother:

I got your letter of the 17th and you seemed a little unhappy about not receiving any mail.  I don't blame you a bit and I guess I need someone to get me on the ball.  I guess I write a lot more to Mary than anyone else right now.  Well I will try to think of more to go in my letters and get them off more often.

Here is a good idea of just what kind of a climate we have here.  It rained today and it got so muggy that when I was standing in a breeze the sweat on my arms and hands would not evaporate.  After dinner I went to sleep for a couple of minutes and woke up with little beads of sweat all over me.  I guess it is just as they say at home, it's not the heat but the humidity.  I have no idea what the humidity around here is but it sure must be terrible.

Well I may be lucky because I didn't get a leave.  Bill Samput got his leave fixed up and now he is shipping out to go to Roswell N.M. for B29 co-pilot.  It seems that it happened to all the fellows who got leaves.  So maybe not getting a leave was a good thing after all.

Bill Samput is on the orders to go to Roswell.  So after knowing him for a couple of months more than a year we are parting.  Well we have had a lot of fun together and I have met his folks.  They were swell and I enjoyed my stays with them.

Let me tell you what happened this weekend.  I met a cop up at Addie Mae's house a week ago and he is a flying enthusiast more or less.  He asked me if I wouldn't like to go flying with him Sunday and I was more than willing to accept.  So Sunday he called the hotel in Austin where I was staying and said he was ready to go.  He has a car so we went out to an airport where he has had some in striation.

Well this is a long story but I have a lot of time.  He had told me previously that he had flown a year with the C.A.P. so I assumed he had several hundred hours.  He also said that he had flown AT-6s which made him a hot rock.  I had to get checked out in this cab which took about 8 minutes on the ground and in the air and then off we went.  

Well we got out to the point of take-off and he asked me to take it off, so I did but I thought it was rather strange that he didn't want to fly.  I took off and asked him if he wanted it and he took over.  We went flying over the city and after a while he got tired and asked me if I wanted to fly.

Sure I wanted to fly so I moved from a position of resting with my elbows on my big knees to where I could put my hands on the throttle and stick I hit the throttle and the engine quit.  Well old Timmy almost hit the roof.  He turned around, shaking like a leaf and said in a very halting voice that I had better take it.  So I grabbed the throttle and away we went.

Well from the way he flew and by his reactions I should have known more about his flying but I being an innocent pilot still accepted his word of 1 year with the C.A.P. flying the border.  Taking things for granted in an airplane does not work.

We came in and I shot a landing and then I told him to take over and shoot one.  When we got around to the final approach into the field he turned around and told me to follow him through which was OK by me.  But when he started to level out 100' up instead of 10' I really started to sweat and when the ship stalled out about 25' up and the bottom felt like it fell out I was really sweating.  I gave it the power in a hurry and we hit and made 4 hard bounces which would make your teeth rattle.

We taxied up to the ramp and got out and then I found out that Timmy wasn't such a hot rock.  He had exactly 3:15 actual recorded stick time and the rest was what he could pick up while navigating on the border.  Well let me tell you that the next time I went up with him I didn't take too much for granted and I stayed glued to the controls.  I guess you can learn something every day, even on Sundays.

Next Sunday I am going to take Addie Mae and her roommate for a ride in a Stenson 105 if I can get checked out.  I think I can so it will be a lot of fun but also rather expensive.  It will cost $10 an hour so you can see where the money goes.  "Bus man's holidays" are rather expensive.

Stenson 105

Maybe I shouldn't tell you my trouble but this climate is kind of getting me down.  I am losing weight rather fast and I don't quite know when it will stop.  Also I feel just sluggish and uncomfortable.  I only feel good when I am cooled off while swimming and only then do I feel well enough to have any fun. I hope I can get used to this climate but it is really the worst I have ever been in.  It leaves you without enough energy to live, in fact I find that I drag my feet unless I think about it.  That is getting bad when you can't find strength to lift your feet.

You probably remember the Bulova watch you sent to me more than a year ago.  Well that darn thing is more trouble than it is worth.  I have spent more on repairs for it than anything I own.  It is just not a hardy enough watch for what I am doing.  I have another watch so don't be surprised if you find this watch in the mail.  I have just l most the stem and will have to replace it.  I have too much trouble to have it around.

Well I shall send these pictures of the Samputs and me.  They are not too hot but they are all right.  You can get an idea of what they look like.  They are typical Texans if there is any way of telling.

Well I hope I am forgiven for not writing because I think of writing much oftener than I do.  

With love

Austin