January 6, 1943

C. P. S. #59
Elkton, Oregon
Jan. 6, 1943

Dear Folks,

You should have had two letters from me by now. It takes so long to get one out there that I suspect that it seems like I have forgotten you.

I got your letter yesterday that was written on the 31st. I wrote on the same day which you should have gotten by now. The cookies came the day before yesterday. They were in very good condition. I guess that that system of making eggcase fillers for them is pretty good. That must be quite a bit of work to fix up a box like that. How will my having to have my sugar book effect the cookie situation? I hope that after a few months this camp will be able to get the same deal that Coshocton was. But they may not. Some of the fellows that were in on the beginning of the Coshocton camp said that at first they had trouble getting enough sugar too. Another thing is that this camp is growing pretty fast too and the new fellows that come in don’t have any sugar here so they have to eat off the rest. There were 30 men here when we arrived and there were 39 of us and now the score is 83.

The weather has improved a lot this week. It seems dry cause we havn’t had any rain since yesterday afternoon. I guess that is normal Oregon winter a good day every once in a while. The sun shone quite a bit today and I almost got my directions straightened out. The sun came up in the northwest today and I got around to seem more like it went down in the south instead of the west. In a couple of days I may get straightened out right.

I got into a really good job here. I am in charge of the camp wood shop which means that I am a sort of official carpenter and handy man to fix most anything. I really love that kind of work and It will be mostly dry too. There is a lot of swell wood-working equipment here. It was left by the CCC and the Land Office (which we work under) requested that they leave it here for us. The director signed for it which means that the Service Committee will have to replace anything damaged. Well, this carpenter shop has a 36” turning lathe, planer that will take a 7” board, a jig saw, an 8” bench-saw, a 12” bench-saw, a band-saw, and electric press-drill and an electric hand drill. Also a lot of hand tools such as saws and planes. I’m really having a picnic getting that stuff arranged. It had been set up in a hurry by some of the 30 men that were here before we from Coshocton came, but it was done so sloppy that it wasn’t safe or efficient. Besides all that shop machinery there is a lot of smaller machinery of the same type that is stored here. 5 other laithes and 2 or 3 saws. WE have three 16 mm. movie projectors and about 20 typewriters. Only one of the movie projectors works right now but I think they can be fixed. The typewriters don’t all work either but I imagine that most of them be repaired.

I have been doing carpenter work on the project up till today which was the first day that I worked in the shop. I think I am very fortunate to get this job, I had some competition and I’LL have to do good work to keep people satisfied.

I think I shall be pretty happy here, in some ways this camp is going to be better than Coshocton but the weather is lousy.

Don’t get to thinking that I’m not interested in what happens back home. I’m looking forward to getting back to help youns next spring if it can be arranged. Plenty of time to talk about that. Its time to go to bed now.

Thanks a lot for that last fiver, I know of something that I think I shall spend some of it for, tell you about it later.

Yours,
Bernard