February 28, 1943

C. P. S. #59
Elton, Oregon
Feb. 28, 1943

Dear Folks,

Say, here it is the last of Feb. already. It won’t be long till it will be spring back there too. We have had about three weeks of swell spring weather and are expecting winter back any time now. They say that is the way it happens in Oregon.

I got your last letter Fri. and you it was mailed Tue. I got it the 4th day. When is it you get mine? On the 5th or 6th day? I don’t think that I have gotten any of yours in less than the 4th day. Quite often they are mailed on Tues. and I don’t get them till Sat. I think that possibly Air Mail does save one day or maybe two sometimes unless I have been figuring wrong. You see you are out of the way there to get a letter off to a good start and so am I here. So they get a bad start and a poor finish.

The other day I filled out an application for furlough starting May 6 and ending May 26. Well, I can change it. It just stays in the office here. But That will just get me back in camp before the deadline at June first. All men are kept after that for fire fighting and that will last till it rains in the fall. It will be a good thing that I got my application in cause there will be a rush for last minuit furloughs. I can get away after the 6th cause the last 6 days till the 12th which will make it an even 9 months only gave me ½ day and I can’t use that. I suspect that I’ll have to change that till the 7th of may, I don’t know tho which end it will come off of. The way I made out my application I wound be getting 21 days. Well, 20 days is what I have. That won’t leave me home for long will it but that is all there is. There have been guys trying to get extension on furlough since this mess started and about the best thing that has been done is a few days of emergency furough in cases of severe sickness in the family. There was one guy at Coshocton that overstayed his furlough 3 days. And they had to report him AWOL. Acording to the regulations the third time that happens he is liable for reclassification in L-A. I guess he didn’t believe that and wanted to find out.

I told you about the fellow that was helping me that could out-gaget me, well I have a guy helping me know that is really a headache. Kit Carson (the gagetier) is now Assistant Director wile the regular Assistant director is at assistant director school. They gave me a reall nice man for a while then he got a chance to go near his home to do timber crusing and I lost him. Well, then I got this guy and he is all that I don’t want in a man. He didn’t want to cme here to start with. All he wanted was not to fight. He has a bad hip and couldn’t plant trees so they put him in here cause he wanted some work with less walking. He’s very unparticular and don’t care anyway. He’s terribly dumb and can’t do anything right the first time. And to top it off he grypes all the time about everything. I have got so I just tell him that there isn’t anybody guarding the gate and all he has to do is walk out. That shuts him up. I’m beginning to understand what Dad was up against in hiring men. He and one other are all the really discusting fellows we have. The rest have a pretty good attitude towards CPS.

I’ll get someone to see about train arrangements for me soon and let you know.

We got the drafting tables all done except a little winding up yet and are now making stools for the fellows to sit on while they use our tables. We will finish that this week and after that I’m not sure what will happen to me. The original plan was for me to work for the camp but their overhead quota is full now. I think that they will manage to keep me in the shop tho as there is so much to be done. I will be making stuff for the camp then like buliten boards and cabinets for the kitchen and stuff like that.

We are making a Chaple out of one end of an extra dorm and I have been working on a bench. We plan to make ten benches 12 feet long and I am making one to get them started. I have to do that in the evenings so I haven’t been doing much letterwriting. I’ll tell you about the benches next letter.

Keep your chins up. God’s in His heaven and the sun is shinning in Oregon. (now)
Yours
Bernard

P. S. I intended to tell you about our movie here in camp last night. It was The Grapes of Wrath. I saw it once before but was glad to see it again. You remember that it is about the sharecroppers going to Calif. to find work and then getting a dirty deal there too. Well, There are several Calif. guys here and they said that it is all true and the fruit pickers are still getting a dirty deal.