March 2, 1944

3/2/44
Dear home folks,
The sun is shinning like the dickens here, I guess spring is here in Oregon. We have been having pretty good weather. A little rain now nad then but not too much.
Did I tell you that the “Camp baby” arrives last week? Well, he did. The director and his wife claim him but the whole camp was a little excited about it. We havn’t seen him yet but expect them to come ‘home’ mext week sometime. She went to the hospitle in Eugene and stayed a few days before it happened and then when they figured the last minute had arrived they called Lew (that’s the director, everyone calls him that) and he tore off for Eugene on the first bus that came along. When he came back a couple of days later he was really walking on air. He said when he walked down the street he had a hard time to keep from stopping strangers and telling them “I’ve got a new BOY.”

We found out about them wanting to draft more farmers. I don’t read the papers much but somebody told me about it. Don’t get me wrong I’m glad you send the clippings I probably wouldn’t have read it at all if you hadn’t. I think that it is kind of a joke about them having a shortage of men in the army. There was an Englishman her for a few days that had just reciently returned from England. He had been over here working for the British Broadcasting company or something. He said there was an awful lot of US army men around and they weren’t doing anything at all. He said they were something of a nuscience. They get paid in American money or on the same rate anyway and it is a lot more than the British soldiers get and that ain’t good. They don’t have much to do so they run around a lot and they use the Gov’t cars and jeeps a lot and that makes the English boys more dissatisfied too. There are some companies of Negro soldiers over there and in England there isn’t any race problem but the American soldiers don’t like to have the negros treated as well as they are and there are some amusing incidents. Maybe they will learn something.
Well, it looks like you will get a 4 row planter maybe. That sure will be a help. I kind hate to see you join the F. Bureau. I don’t know why exactly, there are some very good people in it. I guess the reason I don’t like it is cause they never seem to get to the real bottom of the problems but just show people how to get along. I have been doing a lot of thinking in the last few months about things in general. Every once in a while I’ll think of something and remember that’s something that Dad used to talk about. There are several of us here that have been doing a lot of thinking about what we are going to do after the war is over and how and where we are gong to do it. We have discussions on Sunday nights and quite a few of the fellows come and we get some good things stired up. A good many of us more or less agree that a lot of trouble can be traced back to the moneyed man, but we aren’t communists. It isn’t the rich man’s fault he’s rich, in fact I rather admire him. We kind of agree that, to be idealistic, the whole emphasis of life must be changed from material things and competition to---perhaps something less strenuous and wasteful and more satisfying. I don’t know a suitable word for it. Do you think we are getting anywhere? We don’t have an answer but at least we are thinking. I think the answer is something each person will have to work out for himself. Don’t you?
With love
Bernard