3-27-1943

March 27, 1943
Dear Dad, Mom, Shirlee and Rhoda……….
Well how are you today? I hope you are O.K. and that you are not worrying about me. I am a bit lonesome but I am getting some good experience so I guess that compensates for it. I don’t like Frisco because there are so many bums, drunks and people that smoke. It is really awful. All of the fellows that went in with me to be examined smoked except one. They all seem to be good guys except for that. There was one perticular, his name was Dick O’Driscoll. He is from San Jose, that is about 50 miles from here. He and I chummed around a little but he smoked like a furnace,…..one right after the other. But I guess I’ll have to get used to that kind of stuff as every other person who doesn’t do it will have to. The first few days the smoke was so thick that it made me sick.
I am back here on the same typewriter that I had last night.
BEFORE I FORGET
…..I AM NOW IN THE NAVY AIR CORPS….
I passed everything today except for one thing that you have to do after you are sworn in. I am sworn in and passed everything and now I have to wait around here until Monday before I am able to leave for home. I have to fill out one blank and the fellow who is in charge of it left for home at one o’clock today and a bunch of us were very disappointed because we have to wait. I would have been home Sunday night if that fellow hadn’t gone away.
I am going to call you tonight if I can get a line thru, the lines are really crowded out here on the long distance so I don’t know what time it will be, but by the time you receive this letter I will have called, I hope.
Tomorrow is Sunday, the first day I will have free. I think I will go out to the beach and to the park and to the zooooooooo.
I hate to stay away so long but it can’t help I guess.
This YMCA is really good for service men as I told you before. Fellows that get in off of ships can come and get a room for 65 cents. Last night they had a free show for all of us and tonight they have a pianist. (Tell Shirl that this pianist is a gal and she really makes a hit with all of the good looking sailors. And she is paid for it besides.)
Well I haven’t spent more than a dollar the whole time and I have enough meal and lodging tickets to last me until Monday Morning when I will get my train tickets and I’ll leave for home Monday night and get there Tuesday night.
I have a nice little pin signifying that I am in V-5. The officer in charge said that we really have something to be proud about. I think it is really swell.
Those Chillian Sailor officers that I told Shirlee about are still here. Boy are they funny ducks. They can’t speak English and they have a lot of fun drawing pictures of what they want.
I am still amazed at the Oak Knolls hospital. Boy I’ll never get over what I saw there. It is really wonderful the way the fellows there are taken care of.
The other day I saw some amphibian jeeps. They are really cute. They are a regular jeep with a boat body and a propellor on them. When they are in the water the motor turns the propellor and as soon as they hit bottom the wheels drive it.
I also saw a bunch of P-39 Airicobra Army planes fly under the bay bridge today.
Well I guess I’ll go and eat and write to Don.
I am having a swell time but I’d rather be home.
You son
Bill