Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
12 November 1943

I'm finished with my payroll but it is going to be done over. At three o'clock this afternoon I wasn't even half way finished and was pretty tired of it not being done. There were several errors in it already so I decided to speed up my pace. Boy, inside two hours flat, I had typed in every one of the names with the necessary figures. But along with my haste I made a few errors and on looking it over, I think I could retype the entire payroll in about three hours without having any errors at all.

The mail promises to be extra good this evening. I helped T/5 Hill bring the two mail sacks chuck full to the top with packages back to the company at four o'clock but he didn't have the time to look thru them right then; so we will get them after supper. It is about time for both letters and packages to be coming in once again.

I've been stuck with the movie tonight, "Buck Benny Rides Again", at the outfit across river. Gordon has to go to town for a rehearsal of the play he is in and Lt Yantis never bothers to take it but on Thursday nights. If it was a movie I hadn't seen, it would be a different story; but to go there to show it again is just going to be tiresome.

Either the Russians are becoming cooperative or else the Atlas you sent me is extra good, because every one of the towns mentioned in today's Daily News (South Pacific) as being captured by the Russians was on the map. At the rate those guys are going it won't be very long before they are advancing on Berlin instead of the Allies.

Larry and I saw a very unusual sight yesterday. It was a spider spinning its web. The mainstays had already gone up and a rough basic pattern of the web. It was interesting to note that only after the superstructure had gone up did it begin to spin the remaining strands. I've often wondered how a spider manages to cross those great big gaps. She simply does it by spinning out the thread behind her while she crawls along a trestleway already spun. She then comes to an intersection and tacks the new line about a ¼" away and parallel to the one she is traveling on. She feeds the new line with the back two legs and does all the traveling with the remaining limbs. These spiders have found that the corners between the roof of the canopy and the uprights make ideal spots to fasten a web to.

Say that girl who played the part of the apewoman was the one who comes from Jack's home town of Norristown, Pa. Her screen name is Acquenetta and she is panned out to be a Cuban. However, when the Norristown newspapers found out that she was none other than a very very light negress called Mildred Davenport who went to the Norristown High, they publicized it widely. Jack says you can tell she is colored when you see her although it is a very slight trace. Her family is supposed to be as black as coal. Two other pictures she played in are, "Arabian Nights" and "Rhythm of the Islands".

It is after five o'clock right now and maybe I will have to eat candy instead of eats for my meal if I wait much longer. There isn't more then ten pieces of candy left in Mrs. Snyder's candy. I'll have to be sure to send a thank you note to the Reeds this evening before it is all gone. I sent a letter to Eleanor Angsten last night and a three sentence thank you note to Dolores. In Dolores note, I said that I was surprised to be writing to her again so soon but that it was the swell box of candy which she sent me which prompted the reply. I told her I was working and could only drop the short line and then injected a little humor by passing one of those Happy Moron jokes.

The candy they sent me is just about gone too, down to the last five or six pieces of Michigan mints.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman