January 21, 1943

C. P. S. #59
Elkton, Oregon
Jan. 21, 1943

Dear folks,

Well, Warren got here a few days ago and we have talked over everybody around Baton and some that aren’t. It sure is good to see someone from home. I guess I missed Ab a lot. He and I used to get together about once a week and talk about people we knew.

I got the chocolate today and ate one bar, gave some of it to some of the guys in the dorm, we all thot it was pretty good. The cocoa we get doesn’t tast very much like cocoa. It must be either cheep stuff or some kind of subistute. What we had for cocoa at Coshocton was an imitation but it didn’t taste bad. So you see real chocolate tastes pretty good.

I still have quite a bit of that Nestle’s chocolate left. At first out here I didn’t find quite the right bunch to drink chocolate with. But I have been working with a very swell fellow in the shop and we will heat up some water and have a cup of chocolate along about 4:00. Then there is another good guy that isn’t able to do hard work that I have become very will aquainted with. They let him stay in the infirmary and sort of look after the few guys that are staying there because of bad colds or typhoid shots. That gives him about a hald days work to do every day and then he can rest. Well, he and I have got to be pretty good pals and find we agree on most everything. Last Sun. nite I took a box of Chocolate over and we and the one patient he had had a good visit and some chocolate too. Both these fellows came from Coshocton.

The guy that helps me in the shop will be there till we get through with some work we are doing in there for the project. They are going to do some sort of drafting work here and they want some drafting tables made. So we are making them. It is a rather annoying job so far tho. No one seems to know exactly what the nature of the work will be or how many tables they will need but we have to make tables. Kit and I designed and made a table. This guy’s name is Harold Carson, they call him Kit. Well, the project superintendent looked it over and couldn’t seem to find anything wrong with it but he had see one that an old lumber-jack friend of his had made and he though that it couldn’t be beat. So he wouldn’t have anything but we should make one like that. We naturely don’t think it is as good as our but we figure the only way to prove him wrong is to make a table and let him see. I have learned a lot about how to get along with bosses since being in CPS and think that I wouldn’t make a very good one. I’d be too inclined to let people do things the way they wanted to. I don’t know maybe that would be good. That is the way I would like for a boss to do. I find it makes a lot of difference whether I’m interested in what I’m doing or not too. Now, I sure hate to have a guy telling me to do something that I know is a dumb thing to do in carpenter work, while I didn’t care so mush about some of the other things that I did before now.

The main purpose of a wood-shop in CPS is usually rescreation for the fellows and small improvements, along a cabinet-work line. However, this shop is a little different. We have here all the tools that belonged to the CCC before they left. There are a lot of good tools too. At Coshocton there was a Gov’t man that had charge of the camp grounds and buildings and had frist claim on us before the project did. He was called the Teshnical Supt. Here we have only a Project Supt. At Coshocton there were two men that did only repair work and worked under this man while here all the tools have been signed over to CPS and there is not Tech. Supt. and no CCC tool room like we had there. So I am in charge of all the tools and the repait work too. There is much less work along that line to do here tho. At Cosh. there was an awful lot the ASFC spent 2,000 dollars on repairs and improvements and they havn’t spent hardly any here yet. The buildings were in much better shape and the weather isn’t cold just rainy. The most noticeable thing here is the doors most of them wont close, they are swelled and the kitchen roof leaks. I am a long way from getting to that tho. as soon as we get this drafting table worked out, I must get the tools collected and fix a place for each one and then the shop will be in good enough shape to let go while I do some repair work.

Those cookies are still good, I have a few left. I sort of horded them a while, there was a lot of candy and cookies around just after Christmas so I just didn’t pass mine around much and there were a lot in that box too. I don’t know if I’l ever get those magazines read. I don’t have much time to read tho I do like to. We have to work on Sat. afternoons now and I have to spend some of my nites in the shop to keep the fellows from doing something dumb like sawing nails. I have time at night while I’m in the shop to work on some thing for myself so the time isn’t wasted and I enjoy it too.

Well, I’m convinced that the Lord takes care of his own and all we have to do is take care that we live so that the Lord will be proud to claim us.

Thanks for the dollar. I’m thinking of trying a little photography out here. They have two dark-rooms and a sort of Co-op deal on the chemicals used in developing so it wouldn’t cost much. I think it would be a good chance to learn something about it. I imagine that some of the money you have been sending me will go for that.

Don’t work too hard and keep trusting in God. I think He has been pretty good to us.

Your son,
Bernard
P.S. Say if there is family group picture around there that belongs to me put it in with the next package you send me. I’ve been going to have you send it but always forgot it. I want to show the fellows how goodlooking the rest of my family is.

There is about 2” of slushy snow on the ground here. The natives here say it is very unusual. The light wires are down somewhere and that whole area has been without light all day. It is the R.E.A. that explains it. The town of Elkton isn’t on a R.R. so they use REA too. The camp rigged up a D.C generator to use with a gasoline engine and (?) we have light while it snows(?). It has ---- some so the lights are out once in a while. We can’t use any of the motors or radios tho cause it is DC not AC.

Eugene is 54 mi N.E. up the coast