July 23, 1944

Dear Sis,
Your letter of July 11th arrived yesterday, a lot faster than most of the mail I’ve been getting lately.

Loretta sounds like an interesting person I’d like to hear more about her (from herself if she will). I don’t know whether you’ve ever gotten my other letter suggesting the same or not. A lot of mail is held up somewhere along the line.

I don’t know how you write as long a letter as you do and still keep it so interesting. It seems that I can never find anything to write about; if I could, I’d write oftener.

A girl friend of Dot Jones has been writing to me some. They are ‘two of a kind’ and if their letters are any sign of their real selves they are plenty wild. I don’t know why she writes to me unless it’s because I don’t care much what I say or how I say it. She has a ‘steady’ somewhere in the Pacific, but I imagine she’s a little more careful of what she writes to him. I get a kind of a kick out of it, anyhow.

Where do Stef and Dolores live, now? I imagine it did do them good to stay out late once. They used to get around quite a lot.

I don’t think I’ve been to the Stony Fork park since the time we had the school picnic down there and “L. D.” said, the next day, that he didn’t know which was worse, drinking or necking – remember?

I brought my trunks with me but I haven’t been swimming for over a year. I probably won’t remember how when I do try it. I remember when we used to go down to A.B.Carpenters at Middlebury for steak roast, etc. about four years ago. I dropped Lucille Wright in the road one night when we decided we should walk on home from Charleston one night.

So Jay thinks Laura is pretty nice, eh? Well, I don’t blame him, I tho’t so myself. I got a letter from her not long ago but she didn’t have much to say. I haven’t answered it yet. I have never seen her sister Maxine, but have heard of her.
 How big a garden did you have? I’ve been out on the lot behind the house but can’t remember how large it was. There was a board fence at least partway around it if I remember correctly.

I’ll bet you were a fine specimen of a sawyer. I would probably have teased you about it myself. If you finally got what you wanted though it was probably better than any of the rest around there could do. When a little boy had to put your cultivator together though it’s kinda just too much!!!

I reckon it is hard for Loretta and you to get your lessons done together. When two girls get together they usually forget the original reason and start raising heck. You wonder how I know? Ha ha!!

I got a letter from Mom saying she had sent a couple of boxes I had requested, popcorn, nuts and some camera film. Now if you’ll just send that writing paper I’ll be pretty well set. Oh yeah, if you happen to run across a good cigarette lighter, Ronson, Evans or Lipps send it too. I have some of these Limey lighters but they aren’t worth a darn.

Three pages is a lot more than I expected to write when I started.
Love, Wayne