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

They have arrived at last! What do you know about that! Isn't that the way? Just give them up for lost one day and they will arrive in the next day's mail. Say, I didn't know that Senor G had you send two boxes of Mallow Delights! And after two months, I just couldn't believe how they had retained their freshness. It is uncanny the way things can be kept in sort of a state of suspended condition like that.

But thanks for the hard candy which I have been going at ever since opening up the package just as if hard candy were the one and only kind. But of course, they, like Mallow Delights, are Mrs Snyder's variety. At first I thought they were all like the little round balls at the top but when I dug some out of the big Crisco can to take to show with us, I discovered that there were a lot others.

And so that was the surprise, eh? A picture of the old Christmas display! By golly, but you set them up just exactly like we used to have them and you even put up the little split rail fence which is an engineering job in itself. And no wonder the magnifying glass. It is almost as if I were sitting in the parlor once again looking at them for hours.

Besides the two packages, I received Aunty Florence's Christmas card which was real nice. And besides that I received a Daily News from the 23rd of October plus four V-mail letters. Three V-mails were from you dated the 25th, 28th and 29th while the fourth was from Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack seems to forget that he was the one who taught me how to drive in the first place. It was his early instruction plus ninety per cent nerve which made a driver out of me. Today!

I'm trying to type this letter in a hurry because the precious hours will go by fast enough when I start on ye olde payroll. The time now is quarter to eleven at night. We (Larry and I) went down for an after the show shower but never did get to wash more than our faces since the water stopped shortly after we got in there. Just to make sure I complete my objective for this evening, I have told a fellow who must get up before five o'clock in the morning that I will personally wake him up.

The movie tonight was ok. It was the "Falcon's Brother". Besides the movie we had an innumerable string of shorts. One short was a series of three intelligence pictures about our enemy, Japan. How she lives, acts and works; what her resources and capabilities are etcetera which all proved very interesting. Another short was "A Portrait of a Genius" and concerned Leonardo di Vinci who invented all the modern day inventions over four hundred years ago but because he was so far ahead of the times he was forced to destroy them or be classed as a heretic. Another short was "The Invasion of Sicily" while the final short was "Al Donahue's Band and Entertainers".

I'll answer your letters tomorrow when I have more time to browse thru them, We started in on the Mallow Delights but I have called a halt for the time being because they are a little bit too precious to eat all in one day. Last year I hoarded them the same way at Camp White, remember? By the way, thanks too for wrapping the candy up in those small packages of three. That way, dirty hands and all I can eat them and I can let others dip into the can without fear of those nasty germs.

For a while I was wondering whether my good intentions were going to be held up by the human element. Butterball, more familiarly known as Tom Campbell, was parked in the office when we arrived and he is one of the night owl variety who think nothing of sticking around to well after twelve. He's gone now and it is a relief because I have wasted many an hour of good sleep by gabbing with him.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman