697 1/6/1945 Jim Erwin to Helen Carlson

Jim Erwin 497th Service Sqdn. 44th Service Group, APO 487, NY Saturday, January 06, 1945

Helen Carlson 382 Robertsville Road, Oak Ridge, Tennessee

Dear Helen, I have finally started a letter to you. I had a wonderful Christmas. Probably the biggest one I ever had. Two of your packages came. The one sent through the New York place and the large, wonderful fruit cake. Thanks a million. I received fifteen packages and every one was jammed full. New Year’s Eve, I went to an officer’s club to play in a band. Let another kid play the clarinet and then really got stinko. The next night, took a Red Cross girl home and the place was full of liquor so got stinko again. Hope you, Elmer and family had a nice Christmas and a big time New Year’s Eve. A new Red Cross building was opened officially last night. It is just across the street from our area and is really nice. They serve sandwiches, cocoa, doughnuts and coffee. The special service office where I work is just next door. I applied for a bookkeeping course just before leaving on furlough. It was here when Cliff and I returned. Finished the work a few days ago and took the test this morning. It was easy and am sure everything was perfect. A bamboo building with a straw roof is going to be our university. The Army is really pushing this educational program. I’m going to enroll in three classes, bookkeeping, mathematics and Hindustani. Might just as well learn the language. Think we’ll be here for a long time yet. The courses cost two dollars for enrollment fees and for books. If you do well in the courses, the remaining ones are free. Practically all the colleges and universities in the States are offering courses. When I get to where I left off at W.S.C., I’m going to apply for a correspondence course and will receive college credit. We put on a track meet New Year ’s Day. Everybody had a swell time and had a beautiful day for it. This month, there is to be an All-American Track and Field meet at Calcutta and we’re entering one of the colored boys. He is a one-man track team. Certainly hope he does well down there. Our basketball league will start next week. Our squadron won the group championship back in Florida so hope we can do it again. There are some tennis courts on the base but not very close by. We want to build a couple courts out on our field. It will be swell if we can. A Lt. that is assistant special service officer went to Ballard High School and later to the U. of W. We have a lot of fun together. He is twenty-four. I’ll be twenty-two tomorrow so he isn’t much older. I have a stack of mail to answer and letters of thanks to write. Just haven’t felt in the mood to write for over two months now. I’ll have to get busy on them. Our weather is still cold. The fog pours in every night and soaks everything. I’d rather have it stay like this though. This summer, it will be terrible. The way this place is being built up, doesn’t seem as though we’ll ever leave here. A hospital was built, the group Red Cross building, engineering section, post exchange. Everything looks as though this is to be the place. I did want to get into Burma or China but doesn’t look like it. We could move tomorrow though. That’s the way the army does things. Glad said Cully is playing hockey but don’t know how he is doing. You probably hear from her quite often so let me know. Thanks again for everything Helen. I’ll try and write to you more often. Your brother, Jim