February 22, 1943

C. P. S. #59
Elton, Oregon
Feb. 22, 1943

Dear folks at home,

All’s well on the western front. It hasn’t rained for over a week and the sun shines 90% of the time. When the weather is good here it is awful good. This sure is a pretty country when the sun is shining. They tell us that it may start in and rain for a month straight now. Spring starts here early in Feb. The farmers get out and go to plowing and they have their oars or wheat in, I don’t know which it is. We have a chunk of ground for a garden. There is about a half acre that is down by the river and has never been cleared. We get that and that much again if we clear it. The farm land here would make you laugh. The valley is very narrow here. Probably about a mile from the foot of the hills on our side to that foot on the other side. Then there isn’t much farm land in that. There are a few fields 20 rds. wide and 40 long. They raise a lot of hay and pasture sheep in the hills ( I call them hills after seeing some real mountains)

I suppose that you all read the letter I wrote to Harry. Well, I’ve gone to church for the last three Sunday nights in a row. I’m getting back in the habit again. I’m afraid that those two kids that play the guitars are the main attraction. You’d sure like them Mom. They play that foot-tapping sort of gospel song that the Stamp boys sing. There aren’t very many that go there but they all seem to enjoy it so much that you know that it is real and that is what I think religion should be. I went the the Methodist in the morning and they were so dead that I wanted to cover them up. This Assembly of God is getting more popular with the campers and I don’t think that any of them had ever gone to a church like that before. The fellows that have been going there for a while say that the people in town are coming better since more and more of the camp boys are going there.

Thanks for the ‘buck’, Dad. That is one kind of ‘passing the buck’ that I don’t mind a bit. That’s a good idea about getting some shoes but I have hardly worne the new pair that I got before going to camp. Besides that’s not the kind of shoes to wear out here if you are going to get out of camp. Did you notice the shoes on the guy on the cover of the camp report? Well, if you can tell anything about them from that, that is the kind we need here. I have been wearing the old ones that I had when I left home, while I’m in the shop they are all right. But they tell me that in the summer when it gets dry everyone goes out to fight forest fires. And I am told that a light shoe won’t last two weeks in fire-fighting. I don’t know how long I’ll stay in the wood-shop, as far as I can see now there is no immediate end to it but you never know with the CPS. You can get shoes like I want fro from 6.50 to 25 bucks. Some of the guys have gotten some from Monkey Ward for 7.50 or 8.00. They looked pretty good to me. They are called Loggers. The western catalogues are all that have them so you cant look them up. I was supprised to see the difference in the catalogues. They have a lot of stuff like that that is not sold in the middlewest. I think that that kind of shoe would be useful wading around feedlots if this war should stop before I got them woren out. Also I imagine that the rest of my CPS carier will be spent in the west as we never hear of a camp being opened in the east any more. The only thing is I might take a notion to get into some sort of detached service some time. As yet I’m very happy in CPS tho. I believe I shall send for some shoes like those on the cover of the paper. I suspect that it is wise to keep my shoe ration cupons used up even if I don’t need them yet. Thanks for the offer to get me some.

To add a little interest I’ll make a little rough sketch of the drafting tables we have been making.

One more thing, I can’t buy films for my camera but one of the photographers in camp said he thought that I could get a film that was slightly larger and cut it down. The only difficulty would be that I have only one set of spools. Would youns look around and send me any Univex OO films that happen to be lying around the house exposed or unexposed. I doubt if you can get any in Jeff but you might try if you think of it. If I can get several spools I can re wind myself enough film to take a few pictures. I don’t want to spend much more money on it or I’d think about getting a new camera. I want to learn to develop pictures while I’m here as there is a nice dark-room and they have a co-op arrangement to pay for the stuff you use so it isn’t as expensive as sending pictures away. See if you can scrape up any Univex film will you? They quit making that size cause there seems to be shortage.

Yours,
Bernard

(Illustration of front and side of drafting table.)

When we get done we will have 5 like this besides one smaller one of different design and one with glass top and a light under it that they use for tracing maps(?).