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

We have just come back from seeing the movie "Buckskin Frontier" with Richard Dix and Jane Wyatt. It was nothing more than the old fashioned cowboy picture with a lot of riding, shooting and killing. Along with the movie was an Edgar Kennedy short, a Dr I. Q. short and a GI training film.

The best of all was the GI film which glanced at various things like the handling of the family allowances, seized Jap movies of the capture of Hong Kong, and a comic sketch of a goofy soldier.

The band had started playing but they stopped in the middle of their program and the movie went on. Incidentally, they made a liar out of me and had the movie in our amphitheater after I said it was going to be in the big tent.

Along about the middle of the shorts, the operator put on the film we saw concerning Japan. Naturally, no one wanted to see that thing over again so it was taken off the machine by popular demand and the movies were halted momentarily to continue with a section of the stage show which had been a little late in arriving. Do you recall the old soldier I have mentioned as going out into the native camps around here? This Master Sergeant Hauser (or more familiarly known as "Hatch" or "The Chief" brought his tribe for the 353rd's vaudeville night. For the type of music they present it was alright and they even had a girl dancer who gave out with native dancing and singing. I'm surprised at the uncouthness and impoliteness of some of the soldiers because they did not have the patience it required to hear out these native entertainers. Not being familiar with American methods of staging something, they kept their backs to the audience on occasion and talked things over right out there on the stage. To climax the show they played two American numbers and one of them was "You Are My Sunshine".

One of the things I had to do this evening after supper was to put the fresh laundry away and get the dirty laundry ready for the wash. The job isn't done yet so it will have to hold over until tomorrow morning. It seems that the charge for the laundry will be fifty cents for every time we send. The normal will be twice a month or else $1.00. It was understood that during December here would be no charge yet the laundry sent the charges in and we clerks were going to put them on the Service Records. Just before we did, we found out that it was a "dry run". In other words, the laundry was carrying thru the entire procedure and even made it realistic by sending out the charges and not really meaning it.

Wasn't it appropriate that those last two packages come on the same day and it the very last of the Christmas mail? And you wished that it would hold up until along about Christmas time too. And it is Christmas time on the Island because according to the Sopac they fixed up a Christmas tree in the Red Cross in town.

And speaking of Christmas, it looks like it won't be until that day that I will be able to get at John Galsworthy's Life and Letters with all the odds and ends there are yet to be done. I think that since it is so close now, I ought to wait until that day before I do start to read it officially.

The time right now is ten-thirty so I guess I'll not write any other letters. I have four Daily Newses which need reading so I think I'll thumb thru one of them for a few minutes and then haul myself away to bed. I noticed today in one of the papers that they had pictures of a Sady Hawkins Day as it is in the YMCA College and in a preceding issue they had a picture of the Morton High football team. It looks as if my Alma Maters are crashing the headlines.

So-long,
/s/ Roman
Roman