September 6, 1945

Sept. 6, 1945

Dear Mother:

I don't suppose you actually did leave home last Tuesday as you said you might in your letter.  If you had left I am sure I would have heard from you by now and I could plan but I am just assuming that you are at home.

I have no idea how far you could of gotten with your plans but from your letter I got the idea you were coming and to get ready.  So I did the best I could in the short notice I had.

Maybe you all are thinking I am making excuses but you have not seen San Antonio.  It is the closest thing to a mad house I have ever seen.  It is so crowded it surprises me where the people all sleep.  The streets are crowded all of the time and everything looks like Saturday night.

Hotel reservations have to be made 2 weeks in advance unless they have a cancellation.  All of the motor courts and motels are full and I believe that the park benches are pretty well taken care of.  It is next to impossible to eat unless you go in at odd hours.

I had no idea you would decide in a hurry to come or even had an idea that you would take me up on it.  That is why last Friday I took off without checking the mail or anything.  I did not return until Tuesday late and found all the telegrams (one) and the letters.  I should have wired you right away but decided to call on the plane.  I placed the call at 1730 and it finally was through at 2330 and they rang for several minutes with no result.  It would have been 12:30 at home and I don't suspect anyone was up.  But I wish someone could have got up and answered because I felt it was very important, so much so that I sat on marble stairs for 6 hours.

Now I don't know if your plans went so bad that you don't want to try again or not but here is the deal.  Tell me in time to make reservations in Austin which will be a lot more comfortable.  I can really get things fixed up then.  Also I can get a V.O.C.D. and get off for 6 days or more.  It all has got to be arranged but please don't try to get in touch with me on a weekend especially a holiday weekend.

Now if you have left Stoneham and are already home again just disregard this and tear it up.

I went to my first and I hope it is my last military funeral today.  A very good friend and a swell fellow was killed in a crash last Friday.  He was my roommate here and I had known him all the way from B17 transition at Roswell.  He was from Alaska and because of that he was buried at Ft. Sam Houston not far from here.  The Army really did a swell job and made it a very impressive ceremony. His name was Varnell, you may have remembered the name from some of my letters.  He, Bill Ayers, and I had been triple dating together for some time.  His girl in Austin was very broken up; I guess they had planned to get married but maybe it is a good thing they didn't.  Well so ends the tale of another who gave his all but will be remembered only by his friends and relatives.  This sure is a rough life if you don't take it easy and take too many chances.  I am going to have a lot of grand children.

Well Addie Mae and I had a little misunderstanding last Monday.  So I don't know what is going to happen.  I wrote her a letter that was a little on the nasty side so I guess my future in Austin is all taken care of for me.  She is such a good kid I hate to hurt her but sometimes I get so mad I could lick wild cats and I happened to write a letter while in such a mood.

Theodore Roosevelt saying to William Howard Taft, "I can lick my weight in wildcats, C.Q.D!", and Taft replying, "Oh, that’s nothing; I can eat my weight in ’possums, P.D.Q!" 1906.

Well I guess I have written enough.  I wish you had come because I am sure we could have managed.  

With love

Austin

July 18, 1945

July 18, 1945

San Marcos

Dear Mother:

I really don't feel like writing but I guess you are wondering what has happened to your little wanderer. I'm sorry I don't write more but it seems to be just one of those things.

I had intended to write Monday night but I got side tracked.  I probably have written that I have a pair of swim fins but I don't think I told you that I also have a pair of underwater goggles.  You know with the combination you can have all kinds of fun chasing the little underwater creatures.  If you are quick enough you can catch pollywogs and things like that.  But as I was saying I got side tracked the other night.  We decided that if you can see those fish underwater why not try our luck at spearing them; so we made some fish spears.

Goggles have come a long way, thankfully.

We went down to Sub-depot and borrowed and begged until we had what we wanted.  We made the spears out of steel rods and made brass heads for them.  We put detachable long handles on them and had a lot of fun making them collapsible, so you can put them in a hand bag.  We just had a lot of fun.  Now you know why this letter is late.

Well I guess you know I am still spending my weekends in Austin.  Addie Mae and I really have a lot of fun together.  We go out Saturday night and go dancing or just go to a show or something.  Sundays I go up to their apartment and they cook dinner for me.  I lay on the sofa until dinner is ready with my shoes off and with a T-shirt listening to the radio after a really wonderful meal, they can really cook, back to the sofa I go and listen to the radio some more and go to sleep while they do the dishes.  Boy! what a life, almost like home.  Maybe you had better look out before you lose a son in the process.  It's funny though that I can have so much fun and just feel about them as I do any other girl.  I doubt if I shall ever get married.  I have more fun finding nice girls that can cook and have big soft sofas in the front rooms.

Just because it's funny.

Well we have to fly this afternoon.  They are kind of  half hearted by putting us through the AT-7 transition school here.  We are to get 10 hours a month in these sparrows and maybe get checked out. We go up and shoot landing and go out of the area to do single engine procedures.  There is not much to flying this plane but landing it is a horse of a different color.  The controls are so touchy and the least bit of movement has a terrific effect on the ship.  Also we are supposed to make wheel landings and a good wheel landing is a bouncy landing.  In fact if you can land in 3 bounces, you are considered a hot pilot.  I am not yet a hot pilot.  They are a lot of fun to fly for a change, but the time doesn't mean much as far as we are concerned.

It is time for dinner but I don't feel much like eating.  Breakfasts don't agree with me too well and make me feel groggy.  About dinner time I feel like I have rocks in my stomach and not hungry at all.  Maybe it is because I don't get much exercise.  However I drank a couple bottles of beer last night and that may be the cause.  I was just thinking that the next time Pop rather jokingly asks me if I want a beer I will take him up on it.  I don't really like beer but you acquire a taste for such things just to be sociable.

I was going to send you some pictures but the young ladies in Austin want to see them for some reason so you will have to wait a few more days.  How mothers suffer.

I heard the "Pops" Saturday night and heard them say it was the last one this year.  I guess I was halfway scheduled to be there rather than listening 1500 mi away.  But I suppose you couldn't do everything but I could close my eyes and visualize things.  Maybe I can get home when they are out on the Charles.  That could be fun also.

It seems to me that Pop is rather busy.  I just wonder what is becoming of all the money.  Maybe he is salting it away so he can retire but I'll bet he has got some scheme up his sleeve.  As for me I am going to buy a big car and an airplane after the war and the way it seem stop be going I will be out of a job very soon.  I hope so, so I can get back to B.U. and flunk another accounting course.

So William is an old Foran man.  Well I guess he can tell you just how the thing works which is a lot more than I could do.  My knowledge of Foran is limited to what happens when you twist this and that knob and why this and that happens when this and that do-dingest goes wrong.

I am afraid my letter is getting long and boring besides I ran out of ink.  Maybe I had better call it quits and go eat anyway.  I have got to write some more letters but I haven't got time.  My mail piles up, I have to write to Lenny, besides Esther and Mary and Pop always like to hear from me, besides all my other fans around town.  Maybe I can get a private secretary to mimeograph them off.

With love

Austin

How would you like to come to Texas?

Birthday - 45

Birthday - 45

Dear Mother:

I got letters from about everyone today and I really should answer them but how can I and keep up in my social life?  It is just one big whirl.  

Well Mother, you can no longer make me do dishes or go to bed or do anything but disinherit me and kick me out.  Today I am a man???  I am no longer your little boy but 21 years old, old enough to vote and pick the next president.  My it's a wonderful feeling but I feel like I did yesterday.  I know my rights now and you had better look out.

You know I don't think I will disconnect myself from the family quite yet.  I still like most of the people in Stoneham and it seems that my favorite relations live in Stoneham.  The Army still has quite an influence on me so I can't see that I have gained a heck of a lot in the last 24 hours.

The Seeleys and the Schmales were both wonderful.  They tried to give me a good time and were very successful.  It's no so much what they do as just the gesture.  It makes one feel good to know that someone cares. I doubt if we could have run into two any finer families if we had set out to find them.  How lucky I am.

Well Sam and I are giving the girls a break.  We are having a little trouble breaking their hearts but I hope they get over it and don't take their lives because we spurned their love.  After all they should feel lucky to even get a date with such an eligible pair.  We sure are a gift to the women.  We meet all comers on their home ground.

Well maybe it isn't that bad but we have never been refused since we have been here.  Once we took a girl away from a lab period and again away from a study period for an exam.  They are always too glad to come and help us spend our money.  The trouble is they don't seem to be gold diggers but rather spend thrifts.  

I shouldn't write to you about such things because you might get the idea that I will fall in love or something but that won't happen.  I am immune to women and have a fond intention of being a bachelor.  Maybe after I have made a million I will give some nice pretty home-loving girl a break but not till I find one such.

I hope you haven't forgotten the newspaper for the Seeley's.  Now about those pictures.  I sure would like some kind of proof that I had the pictures taken.  Never mind the small pictures if they are going to be a bunch of highway robbers.  What they are asking is much too much.  maybe Mr. Braynard can tell you what we should know but don't get the small pictures if they are going to ask all of what you quoted to me.

I guess I will have to leave off here and continue some other day.

With love

Austin.