1944 was a good year for Dad. He was made a sergeant, and he finally got to marry Bonnie toward the end of that year. He continued training other soldiers and working as a mechanic on military vehicles. When he wrote this letter he was still in England but longed to see some American cars and to hear the sounds of home in the traffic of streets in places like Gary, which at that time was quite a different place from what it is today. JB
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| 1942 Chevy Gansel (Woody) |
9 Sept, 1944
England
Dear Mom & Dad,
Have you been getting any mail from me lately? I sure hope you have. I know how much you worry when you don’t hear from me. You said in your letter that Marge sent me some pictures of Eddie. I never got them, so as usual, I suppose they have been lost. How are Marge and Ronnie getting along? Is she still working? Say, have you heard from Eddie yet? I still am waiting for his letters so I can write to his ship. There is no use writing until I hear from him because the letter may not catch him. Don’t worry about Eddie though. He is OK wherever he is. How is everyone there at home? Still peaceful and happy? I sure hope so. Lt. Noel gave me a couple of CHICAGO TRIBUNE’s today, and I was reading all about the news of the Middle West. It gave me a lift just to be able to read a paper from around home. I sure wish I were there now to read them. How I would like to drive through Gary tonight with Bonnie beside me. I used to hate to drive there on a Saturday evening because it was so crowded, but now I want to see just one street where there is a Ford and an Oldsmobile, and Chev’s and Plymouths and Packards, etc. I want to see lights and people moving in crowded masses, and to hear horns blowing and street cars changing around. Boy, this sounds silly, but it is what I call spending a perfect evening. Going to the show or bowling or skating. Egad. Boy, the blues sure get me on this island they call England. I wish we were in France, no kidding.
Well, I guess I’ve blown off enough steam.
There isn’t much more to say, only that if I have forgotten to answer any of your questions it is because I haven’t got your letter here with me. I sure miss you and hope we can all come back home when Germany is whipped. Bye for now. Be careful. Tell everyone I said “hello.” Please don’t worry about me. I am just fine and am in no danger at all. God bless you.
Your loving son,
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
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