POSTCARD -- Dec. 3 [1942]
Dear Folks,
Arrived in Medford last night. Will be stationed here at Camp White for basic training. Had a tiresome trip up from Monterey and have spent the day trying to get settled. Finally got the bunch distributed among the different companies. We are members of the famous 91st Division and I am attached to Headquarters Co. 1st Battalion. It is damp and cold down here and we all feel it, but I think we will be issued winter underwear soon. I dug my overcoat out this afternoon. It is a relief to know we are permanently settled for 2 or 3 months anyhow. The camp is about 10 miles out of Medford and I figure it must be pretty close to Jacksonville. [There are relatives in Jacksonville.] On second thought I believe one turns off the Jacksonville Road in Medford, but anyway I am not more than 20 miles from there so shall try to get out there when I get a week-end leave. Get on to those pens. I need letters. My address in corner of card. Love, Vance
P.S. Mail me 4 coat hangers.
[I was amused that Daddy would ask Grandma Ina to mail him "4 coat ha
ngers." Couldn't the camp administration just send out an S.O.S. to the good citizens of Medford for the donation of coat hangers? Then I remembered how my roommate and I fought over available coat hangers when trying to get settled in Boston. They were difficult to come by. And when we "downsized," Mike (working mostly unsupervised) bundled up what he thought was a superabundance of coat hangers and got rid of them. I've worked with a shortage ever since. I buy hangers and get rid of clothes, and still I don't have enough hangers.]
POSTCARD – Dec. 4
The weather is getting colder and the army seems to be out of clothes so please locate the sweatshirt I brought home and send it along. Today is really the nuts. It has been getting colder all forenoon. We haven't had to be out in it a great deal but our time is coming. We had our second typhoid shot yesterday and a few of the fellows don't feel so good. I am getting by pretty well aside from my arm being kind of sore.
This letter goes with Hallie discovering the tree was the patch for the 91st! Don't you love confirmation? :-) It's cold and damp up here today, so I know just what he's talking about in his note. Brrr...
ReplyDeleteYay for another blog! Hallie needs a break from work time and again. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a funny saying "Today is really the nuts." Shouldn't it be the PITS?
Look at that! You were both commenting at the same time -- again. I'm trying to time my posts so that those who are paying attention are gratified while those who are busy don't get too far behind.
ReplyDeleteMy dad loved the colloquialisms of the day, which dated his manner of speech and was really beneath his level of learning. I think it was all a part of . . . well, maybe this is really another post. Anyway, perhaps he did misspeak on that colloquialism.
Speaking of confirmation, I haven't been able to find much on World War II boot camp experience -- or the experience of the older draftee.
Old dude in winter boot camp -- stay tuned . . .
If you google "really the nuts", the first hit is an op-ed article, "Political Conventions Really the Nuts", from the Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Richland, Pasco) from 1952 - not too distant in time and place from Vance in Medford in 1942. (Coincidentally it refers to the 1952 Democratic and 1948 Republican conventions, both held a couple of blocks from where I am sitting now - Convention Hall in West Philadelphia.)
ReplyDeleteThat's interesting, Murray. I googled "it's the pits" and got a definition at The Free Dictionary, but they have no listing for "really the nuts." And when I google "really the nuts," I get candy bars and instructions for what to do if you're kicked there. But obviously you found some proof that it was a colloquialism of the day.
ReplyDeleteOh, I see. When I put quotation marks on "really the nuts," then I got the articles you mentioned, Murray. But that's about all I found. I was politely calling it a colloquialism but I think it qualifies as plain old slang.
ReplyDeleteThe more popular phrase is "really the nuts and bolts," and I got trapped into reading a post about the nuts and bolts of successful blogging.