April 21, 1944

S. #59 etc. 4/21 Dear home folks, Practically nothing to say. It is so close to the time that I ‘ll be leaving for home that I guess I don’t have anything that can’t wait. I don’t suppose I’ll write again before I get there. I was interested in the clipping. I knew from Warren when Gene and Dorothy got married but Warren hasn’t been in camp here for about three weeks. So I don’t get all the news so soon. I’d kind of like to see Bob Judd. I wonder if he has changed much. So you’ve got the papering done. That’ll be something different not doing any papering in the spring. I don’t remember I guess I didn’t do any last year. Nine calves now, that’s a nice bunch, I suspect there are more by now. It’ll be good to see some calves again, I hardly ever see anything but sheep out here. I guess I just don’t get where they are, they do raise calves. I don’t mind the work being behind. In fact I sort of like to work hard. If there is a good reason for it. This is a lousy letter. I might mention a darn good speaker we had here a few days this week. His name was William Orvil Mendenhal. He had been Pres. Of Whittier College but when the army moved in he moved out. He visited around camp and then on Wed. night he gave a talk. He sort of told his philosophy of life and it was really something. He said he was a Math thecher and liked formulas for things so he went to looking through the Bible to find out what the greatest Christian that ever lived used to live by. He came across the place where some guy asked Jesus what was the greatest commandment. You know what Jesus told him. “Love the Lord thy God with all they heart all thy mind and all thy soul. And there is another like unto this, Love thy neighbor as thy neighbor as thy self. On these two hang all the law and the Prophets.” He said he thought these things over and dicided that he would do the best he could to do them. But he wasn’t quite sure about the first one cause he couldn’t find an awfully lot about God and he was a little inclined to think that men had created him in their own image. He noticed that there was a time when all men wore beards that God seemed to be a definite person with a beard and sitting on a throne then in later years God has come to mean something different than that to many people. So he wasn’t sure what he was loving with all his heart. But he thought that he could really work on that second commandment. So he got to putting himself in other people’s palce and trying to understand them and why they did what they did and he’s sixty years or so old now and still doing it. He was one of the most remarkable men of his age I ever met. He was egar to hear new ideas and he kept saying that he didn’t know all the answers in fact very few of them. He would just test a new a new idea or though against his formula and see how it came out. Very interesting. Yours Bernard P.S. You can look for me in Boon at 6:33 A. M. May 3rd.