| 1956, NJ: John, Dad, Jim |
Remember the Class C training? Last
week, in a box of old bills, Dad discovered a letter he had written to his
parents. The letter is postmarked Jacksonville, FL, and was mailed to East
Orange, NJ, where his father was temporarily employed. I have typed up the
letter in its entirety—fixed some spelling and minor punctuation, but otherwise
left it alone—but no typeface can possibly take the place of the handwritten
(on personalized Navy stationery) flavor of my Dad’s missive. Take a peek.
 |
| The road trippers! |
A. W. Petrakovitz
10-1-56
Hello,
Guess who is writing? You’re right
it’s your lazy son. Well, really I couldn’t write because I have a broken arm?
No, huh, you didn’t believe it—how about a sprained wrist. No again. Huh. A
badly cut finger, a hangnail, no lead for this pencil, ah, no stamps, or I
could try the one about losing the keys to my locker, but you wouldn’t believe
that either. Okay, I give up—I have no excuse, and you can bawl me out when I
get back. You can even use the belt on me and I won’t say a word—go ahead and
beat me. I got it coming.
I saw Donna and Bob, boy, did they
look good. They picked me up at the gate Saturday at 1:30 and we spent the rest
of the weekend together. Man what a ball. I did get mad though, Bob wouldn’t
let me take them to dinner. I couldn’t pay a thing except the hotel room where
I stayed. ($2.50) Boy they stayed at a nice motel, swimming pool and air
conditioning. Donna sure has good taste.
 |
| Wait, this car was green? |
Last Saturday, myself and two other guys went down to Jax Beach. We got there about 10:30 A.M. and parked the car on the beach. We went in swimming and before we knew it the tide was in and we were stranded on the beach with the car. Luckily the car was on high ground and didn’t get wet—even though the road was under water—it sure got loaded with sand between the wind and what we tracked in. Sunday we had to wash it, and believe it or not, under all that dirt I found green paint. Man I had to wash ever thing on the car. Underneath, inside and even under the hood—the motor was covered with sand so I turned the hose on it and washed it off.
I got the straight dope—we are
leaving here a week from Friday and driving up through the western part of
North Carolina. One the guys lives there and we are going to spend the night
there to break up the long trip. So if I don’t see you that Sunday I’ll be up
on Monday nite for sure.
Well, this is your favorite son (I hope)
signing off until I write again (you hope).
Love,
Tony
xxxx
 |
| Naval Man, 1956 |
No comments:
Post a Comment