Fairfield, Ohio October 4, 1942
Dear Mom and Dad,
How are you? How is everything going? OK, I hope.
I’m writing from a different place this time. We were shipped here yesterday. When we arrived here yesterday, they gave us the evening off, but we couldn’t leave the grounds. I went down and called Bonnie, and tonight, if I can, I’m going to call home.
We have our uniforms now, and they really give you a mess of clothes. I have 2 barrack-bags full. Here is what they give you: 2 pairs of shoes, 3 ties, 2 pants o.d., 2 shirts o.d., 2 pants summer, 2 shirts summer, 2 pants work, 2 shirts work, 1 uniform coat, 1 over coat, 1 rain coat, 6 pair of socks, 3 towells, 4 handkerchiefs, 1 pair leggings, 1 cap o.d., 2 summer caps, 2 work caps, 1 razor, 1 comb, 1 canteen, knife, fork and spoon, mess kit, 1 cup metal, 2 blankets, 2 barrack bags, 1 comforter (no pillow, phoey) 4 pairs of shorts, 2 shirts, 1 field jacket coming yet. How is that for an outfit?
We are sleeping in tents now, and it is cold, WOW! I think tonight I’ll wrap the mattress around me.
Bonnie told me last night that you have been calling back and forth, and I think that is swell. I wish I was there.
How is the mill, Dad? Still as hard as ever, I imagine. Is the little cherry still running?
I am hoping we will be stationed pretty soon so that we can settle down. If we do, I may be lucky enough to get a furlough in a couple of months. Maybe even a month and a half. I sure hope I get to come home around Christmas.
Well, I guess I have to close for now, but please write. Love, Elwood
About John
About John
John Bolinger was born and raised in Northwest Indiana, where he attended Ball State University and Purdue University, receiving his BS and MA from those schools. Then he taught English and French for thirty-five years at Morton High School in Hammond, Indiana before moving to Colorado, where he resided for ten years before moving to Florida. Besides COME SEPTEMBER, Journey of a High School Teacher, John's other books are ALL MY LAZY RIVERS, an Indiana Childhood, and COME ON, FLUFFY, THIS AIN'T NO BALLET, a Novel on Coming of Age, all available on Amazon.com as paperbacks and Kindle books. Alternately funny and touching, COME SEPTEMBER, conveys the story of every high school teacher’s struggle to enlighten both himself and his pupils, encountering along the way, battles with colleagues, administrators, and parents through a parade of characters that include a freshman boy for whom the faculty code name is “Spawn of Satan,” to a senior girl whose water breaks during a pop-quiz over THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS. Through social change and the relentless march of technology, the human element remains constant in the book’s personal, entertaining, and sympathetic portraits of faculty, students, parents, and others. The audience for this book will certainly include school teachers everywhere, teenagers, parents of teens, as well as anyone who appreciates that blend of humor and pathos with which the world of public education is drenched. The drive of the story is the narrator's struggle to become the best teacher he can be. The book is filled with advice for young teachers based upon experience of the writer, advice that will never be found in college methods classes.
Another of John's recent books is Mum's the Word: Secrets of a Family. It is the story of his alcoholic father and the family's efforts to deal with or hide the fact. Though a serious treatment of the horrors of alcoholism, the book also entertains in its descriptions of the father during his best times and the humor of the family's attempts to create a façade for the outside world. All John's books are available as paperbacks and Kindle readers on Amazon, and also as paperbacks at Barnes & Noble. John's sixth book is, Growing Old in America: Notes from a Codger was released on June 15, 2014. John’s most recent book is a novel titled Resisting Gravity, A Ghost Story, published the summer of 2018
View all posts by John →
