448 3/19/1942 Jim Erwin to Helen Carlson

Jim Erwin 1903 Alpha, Pullman, Washington Thursday, March 19, 1942

Helen Carlson Box 582 Newburyport, Massachusetts

Dear Helen, Your nice letter came Monday. This evening I went up to the library to study for a test tomorrow and the other fellows went downtown to a show. Today is the first time it hasn’t snowed all week. Hope it will hurry up and stay nice. Spring is next Monday so would hate to have snow on the ground. Since your expenses are low there it would be swell if you could stay for a long time. Your rent is certainly cheap. I hope Cully won’t need an operation on his knee. Maybe it will get better. I bet you are anxious for the big event. Sure hope it is a boy. Next Monday our mid-semester tests start so school is going fast. I’ll be glad when it is out though. It will seem good to get back to Enumclaw. Last night the band gave a radio broadcast over our station KWSC. Last weekend about 200 soldiers moved to our campus. They moved into one of the halls and the students had to move out. The soldiers are going to take a radio course. They walk up and down the streets, fill our bookstore and Cougar cottage, flirt with all the girls, etc. It makes the fellows mad. You sure wrote a lot of letters Friday night. You can just wait until you get answers now. Monday I went upstairs to pay Mrs. Smith the rest of our rent and found out our rent was $42.50 instead of $47.50 as we thought it was. It was certainly a surprise. The school is trying to make all our dance bands quit or charge less. The kids or the houses aren’t kicking but they think something should be done so they are going to pass a law. They called the Junior Prom off yesterday. The kids are awful mad. Last year they had Glenn Gray. This year they were planning to get an equally popular band. Maybe it will be changed though. We have been having some good battles lately but get over them. One of the kids knows how to fix a slot machine downtown. He has won over $10.00 in a couple of days. He will get caught pretty soon though I bet. Maybe not. This isn’t a very good letter and I doubt if you can read it. I’ll do better next time. With love, Jim P.S. We haven’t burned any meals yet.