Was Mom Dad's One and Only?

I've always wondered if Dad was involved with any other girls before he met mom. Here is my answer:

"Sweetheart, we are both frauds, the phlegmatic Joe and the   calm, unemotional Mary. I remember my mother telling me once  upon a time that I wasn't as hardboiled as I wanted to be, that someday a girl would get under my hard shell and discover I am all soft inside.  I remember too that I laughed at that. But  now darling that hard shell has melted completely. I speak of a million kisses to be exchanged between me and my Mary,  I  who have never kissed anyone , even my mother and sisters since I was a baby. I probably never grew up, Mary, beyond the tough guy stage which all little boys pass through. You know, the time when they think girls are sissies, and a real boy leaves all that kissing and stuff to girls.

Darling, you've taken on a hard job in falling in love with me. When I look back, I find it strange that I knew I loved you, Mary beloved. I guess it was because my  emotions were unloosed in a tidal wave when I discovered you, Mary.  Sweetheart, I don't want to give  you the impression that before I met you, I believed that girls would have no part in my life.  Looking at it rationally, I  knew that of course they would. That was the trouble. I looked at it rationally. Naturally as I got older, I discovered that girls were nice to know, that I liked to talk to them, though usually I was too shy to. And I dreamed of being in love, but it was always a well-behaved dream--a dream in which I always knew what I was doing. Because I knew that falling in love was something one did deliberately.

It would be simple. I would meet sometime a girl  whom I was attracted to and I would fall in love with her.  I never really considered the girl's side of it. That's why darling the miracle of  your loving me still seems unbelievable to me.  When I did fall in love with you, Mary, it was and is so  much of a complete surrender of everything I am or ever hope to me, I don't know the right words Mary, so I'll begin again.  When I did fall in love with you Mary, and learned what being in love really is, I couldn't conceive how you could feel the same towards me, sweetheart. I turned "can't"  to" couldn't ," Mary, because my heart seems to know that your loving me makes my love for  you more complete and because I love you, your love is complete.

Dearest. I've learned these things from my heart; up to a year ago, I thought the mind was the only teacher. Now I  know  how wonderful are the lessons the heart teaches the mind.  Beauty as a mental abstraction is something cold, but when beauty is perceived through the love of the heart, the beautiful becomes a colorful living reality.

Yes, darling , just knowing that we love each other gives us so much. It changes our world; it transforms us. I''m like you Mary; I'm afraid to think of the happiness that will be ours when we are together in our love. The happiness I am filled with when I receive and read one of  your letters; the happiness that would be mine were I to receive all the letters  you've written and will write to me all at once, would be just a promise of  my happiness when I will be with you, my Mary, my own beloved Mary. Yet when I open one of your letters, darling, I can't conceive of being any happier than I am right at that instant. "

Joe Koch's Autobiography--Part I

At her request, Dad began to tell mom the story of his life in installments. It is very school and work centered, with very little about his family or personal life.

2/15/43

I can't postpone it any longer, so here goes.  Chapter I --I was born of the traditional poor but honest parents who decided that it would take six more to make up for their first born. At the moment of my birth I filled my lungs and didn't stop crying until I was 18 months old. According to my mother I did take time out for eating but very little for sleeping. The constant exercise was good for me, for I was one of those chubby infants. The next 4 1/1 years I spoke scarcely a sound; in fact some people still call me quiet.  I have a vague recollection of cutting and pasting papers in kindergarten. 

I do remember being presented with a kindergarten diploma by  venerable Monsignor Mooney, a big goblet of beer in his left hand. He had a long and saintly career; he had refused to become bishop  just before Cardinal Hayes was appointed because he loved to be close to his children--there were over three thousand of them in Sacred Heart School when I attended. When he died he was clothed in the robes of bishop, an honor he had refused in life. After kindergarten I started in at St. Paul's School--the Paulist Fathers--and was promptly relegated to the dumb row. This didn't go well with Mr. and Mrs. Koch so out of St. Paul's young Joseph was yanked and returned to Sacred Heart. Seven and a half years later in true Horatio Alger fashion, he was graduated with a medal for general excellence. Now he is a not so excellent private. For the intermediate stages read the next thrilling installment.

2/19/43

Registration at Jamaica High, February 1927. We had moved out to Jamaica in October 1926, but I continued  commuting to New York to Sacred Heart. When I went up to Jamaica to register, the place was in turmoil. The school had just opened, and they were overwhelmed by all whose who wanted to begin at a brand new school. Mr. Grant, administrative assistant, was handling the registration. His system was simple. As soon as he appeared in a corridor, he was surrounded by clamoring would-be Jamaicaites. He'd say, "wait here one minute "and then duck away for alcoholic fortification in his office. As the day progressed, the clamoring crowds grew larger and Mr. Grant  weaved more and more as he ducked away.  It was sure fun. 

I didn't get registered, but I did explore the school thoroughly from the boiler room and swimming pool in the basement to the music room in the tower. The next day young Joseph was accompanied by his mother. My mother claims she's still exhausted from climbing all those steps in her efforts to get me into Jamaica High School. Despite this he was denied registration because he supposedly was in the Richmond HIll High School area. I can still picture my mother walking into the principal's office  to assert that the Koches were taxpayers in Jamaica. Our first tax will wasn't due until March, but Mr.  Vosburgh didn't know that and so he filled out a form approving me for registration.

At the registrant office I was handed a blurred mimeographed slip of paper and two blank program cards.  I stared in amazement at the mimeograph slip. At first I thought it was a Greek motto, but that seemed unreasonable so I decided it was some kind of code to be deciphered as part of an intelligence test. After five minutes of puzzlement someone told me  to copy it on to the program cards.  It wan't until I actually attended the classes that I learned w hat the symbols were.  I remember some of them, E1A16-105, HE1B21 gym. The reason for the battle to get registered was that the authorities thought they could limit the attendance to the school's capacity, 3,200. The firs term th e registration was 4,000. When a quit two years later, it was over 6,000.  At Jamiaca I pursued the commercial course for two, years. Each term I was suspended because I was late three times during the first month. In those days we certainly had awful bus service.

2/25/43

At Jamaica High School, I was officially registered for the commercial course--a young businessman in the making. I was horribly shy in school--sitting in classes with girls made me embarrassed all the time. During my first term, I managed to fail Oral English.  We had English 4 periods  a week and a different teacher for Oral English.  I could never get up sufficient nerve to speak before the class.  I managed to pass my other subjects, but on the whole, I can't say I enjoyed my two years at Jamaica.  It was entirely too big for a school.  I never became real friendly with any of the pupils, and I never became sure of myself.  Where we lived, I was slightly older than the rest of the crowd--they were all about my brother Francis's age.  You know Mary at 14 what a difference two years  makes.  I was what you might call a good student  for I did pass all my subjects each term, which was rather exceptional for Jamaica. My greatest handicap besides my shyness was that I had no one to turn to   for advice on my school work. For instance, I should never have taken a commercial course.  I know I was totally disappointed that I wasn't allowed to take Greek in my sophomore year because I was a commercial student.

July 7, 1943, Dear Mom and Pop, Love Joe

I found this letter from my dad to Grandma Koch particularly interesting because he explains what he is actually doing at Lordsburg.

Wednesday, July 7, 1943

Dear Mom and Pop,

All my letters from New York have been complaining about your recent heat spell. Strangely enough, all last week was rather cool out here, because it was cloudy. We've been having some rain, but it didn't make it any cooler, This afternoon in our office, it must have been at least 110 degrees. Right now, the sun in shining brightly, it's raining with thunder and lightning, and we are having a dust storm--all at once.

As I tell Mary, I find it hard to imagine rationing. We get meat three times a day; the sugar bowl on our table is always filled, and we usually have butter. If the meat situation is as tough as you say it is, perhaps one of the girls might copy what the wife of one of our New York boys did. She was a dancer in a USO show, "Hit the Deck," which closed because all the male actors were drafted. When she got back to Jackson Heights, she abandoned show business and got a job as a bookkeeper for a wholesale butcher.

It's a wonder you didn't have to call in the FBI to locate your missing ration book.  You don't have to worry about all the points I'll eat up if and when I get my furlough. All I will have to do is present my furlough  papers to the ration board, and they will give me coupons for 1 lb. sugar, l lb. coffee, some meat points. and some other food points.

Well there have certainly been some changes since I wrote a long letter home. The censor's office was closed down, and I was assigned as a company clerk for 250 Italians. Each group of that many prisoners of war was to have a lieutenant, a 1st sgt., a  supply sgt., a mess sgt.;, a cook, an orderly, and a company clerk-that's me. For the week before the Italians actually arrived, everyone had to pitch in to clean up their barracks, set up cots, fill mattresses with straw, and quite a number of similar jobs.

In the meantime, however, just as I got up to the mattress filling, a sgt. in the Finance office of the camp was transferred, so I wandered in to see if I could get the job. From that first day, when I still had straw in my hair and ears and eyes, I've been working in the Finaace Office.  There is only two of us who do all the finance work for the camp. Our boss if Capt. Balch, a Frenchman from Louisiana, but all he does as far as we are concerned is to sign papers.

We have to figure out the payrolls for all the enlisted men and officers of the post and also for the civilian employees. In addition, we have a pay out furlough money, travel pay, etc., and fill out a thousand and one forms. The work is slightly difficult because of the red tape in the form of books and books filled with Army regulations.

On the day before payday, Frank Reichart, the chief clerk of the FO and myself, armed with revolvers--great big Wild West six shooters-go down to the First National Bank of Lordsburg to count the payroll and bring it beach to camp. We take with us three guards armed with submachine guns. Last month we had to count about thirty five thousand dollars. That's just the pay of the soldiers and civilians; the officers are paid by check.

A week ago Monday, the Italian PWs arrived, over 1500 of them. Most of them had been captured on Cape Bon in Tunisia, and only one or two could speak English. You can imagine the confusion that resigned for the first few days. Just now they are getting around to fingerprinting them. They were captured during the first week in May and have been traveling since. Just three hours after they landed in Boston, they were on the way to Lordsburg. The three hours were used to delouse them.

We got no officers, just enlisted men, and most of them seem to be glad that the war is over for them. Their first question after eating was would they get three meals a day like this one. They really cleaned their plates--the only things thrown in the garbage pail were prune pits. Most of them are in fine physical condition and appear to be excellent soldiers. At least as far as marching is concerned, for they march much better than the half-baked soldiers we have at this camp. Of course they should; they've spent years marching back and forth across Libya. They were impressed by the American planes and the British Eighth Army, but claim the only reason they lost was lack of equipment.

Here at camp, they are all anxious to work. In a way it's too bad that I didn't stay in the compound as company clerk; I might have learned Italian.

I finally got around to taking pictures with my camera, but as you might expect, most of them are scenery. I sent one set to Mary to start an album with as I figured she's already done so ,while the Koch's Mary or Agnes will be still thinking of it next Christmas.  Since I've appointed Mary as my picture editor--if you want to see them, you'll have to invite her over to dinner some night--tell  her to bring the album.  (Aside to Agnes, we still write to each other every day, and our letters seem to be getting longer too. ) Mary's brother Jim got a lucky break. After finishing at Notre Dame, he received his commission as an ensign, got a two week leave, and then was sent back to Ohio State to take some more courses in preparation for becoming a teacher…..

I'm glad to hear that everything is going along well at home including Pop's victory garden. The garden which the Japs left is still producing. I never had so many radishes in my life. How are you getting by now that income tax is taking a big chunk out of defense salaries? Did you renew the lease?

I have to say goodbye now as we're required to listen to a reading of the articles of war.

Love to all,
Joe

Joe to George, July 27, 19445

I am so grateful to Georgine for finding this letter.

Somewhere in France
Friday, July 27, 1945

Dear George,

Here I thought I was going to surprise you with the news of the arrival of my daughter on the 17th of this month. Instead you and Mark beat me to the punch by announcing your wedding to take place in September.

Congratulations George--after sixteen months and twenty-one days of wedded bliss ,I'm more than ever convinced that marriage is wonderful. My Mary and I are happier than ever be
because of our brand new daughter. According to the latest reports our Mary-Jo looks exactly llke my Mrs and not the least bit like her dad so she is going to be a real pretty little girl.

Again I'm saying am I surprised! So the last of the old yearbook committee is finally taking that step. I'm sure you and Mary will be happy--there's something about being married to a Mary that guarantees it. Even if she is my sister, I think you're a lucky man, George. There won't be a dull moment at your place with Mary around--I know there never was at the Koches. The gal can talk or have you discovered that for yourself? I like them beautiful and talkative myself--I forget you've already met my Mrs. It will be nice having you for a brother-in-law George and I 'm not saying that because we can use a dentist in the family.

Mary tells me you've stationed permanently at Lovell General, you lucky dog. I bet you're glad to exchange Massachusetts for India. How was it there? I'm over here in a "vacation" camp hoping that the Japs decide to give up. On the whole I've had it pretty easy over in the ETO. My only contribution to the war effort was a six week period on d.s. at a PW hospital. Aided by a staff of German PW'S I functioned as a registrar's office. It was nice work but it didn't last long enough. I was lucky enough to get a three-day pass to Paris last week. Paris is really a beautiful city and I was a regular tourist seeing all the sights: Notre Dame, Arc de Triumphe, the Louvre with its Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, a boat ride on the Seine, a tour of Versailles, the Montmartre, the Folies Bergere, the Opera, the Opera Comique, and a host of other high spots.

I sure would like to get home to your wedding but I'm afraid that the army and the Japanese won't cooperate. I hear the two of you will start housekeeping right away. Although we already have a family, my Mary and I still have that experience in front of us. I'll probably be coming to you or Mary for advice. However you tell Mary that she better not try pulling your rank ton the Joe Koches.

Congratulations again, I say, and mine and Mary's best wishes for lots of happiness to the two of you.

Sincerely,
Joe

Joe Describes His Courtship

He did have a secret weapon. His job had been writing letters under constricting rules. He now could write letters without rul3s. She claims it was all platonic yet her first letter to him was a sixteen-page affair. Looking back he is smiling at the strategy of the salutation of his letter. First it was a proper Dear Mary--it’s possible to write the same two words so they are less proper but more warm. She should have realized what his plans were right from the very beginning. The first thing he did was change her name,, he first name that is. How could he ever have written letters beginning Dear Marie.

Three months of seeing her, three months of exchanging letters and she was sure too. A little later--less than a year after they first met, it was properly formalized. She got a ring (It was not in a car; it was outside on the sidewalk in front of her house). The ratio was changed. One kiss in three months to how many kisses in two weeks? Not enough, there will never be enough. His heart was just too full--that time was a blur to him. Did it happen to her as it did to him? There was no beginning. It just always was. Just two he and she.

Of course they were going to be engaged for a long time, and it was a long time. Six months and twenty-six days. One could say he was respoinsible. Too much of his heart got into one of his letters and now slipped in. But she was more direct and she knew her hussyness. She met his train and before they got home it was all decided. And then for a week they didn’t see each other, well hardly at all. A girl has a lot to do before here wedding. Some girls take months and months. This girl did it all in a week. Besides he not knowing that (not clear)

Married on Monday. What plain words. Rainbow isn’t a fancy word either. Nor sunrise,nor moonlight. Love and sacrement--a sacrament of love. For this cause shall a man leave father and mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh. Therefore now they are not two but one flesh.”

Wartime Love Letters

Mary and Joe, March 6, 1944; honeymoon

For Remembrance Day, Mad Hatter published a fascinating post about boxes of wartime letters she found when remodeling her old house. Her post has special resonance for me because I have 20 plastic boxes full of letters my parents wrote from November 1942, when my dad was drafted, until February 1946, when he came home from France and saw me for the first time. I keep postponing doing something with themt. I started a blog of the letters, Mary and Joe: World War II Love Story, but I haven't kept it up. My father particularly was a wonderful writer, who never wrote anything but these letters. Mad Hatter inspired me to go back to that project.

My daughter Rose wrote this about the wartime letters several years ago. She included excerpts from the letters that I am not including here.
In my grandmother's house, past a stone Mexican statue named Harry, up the front stairs and to the right there is a bedroom. In this bedroom there are a pea green carpet, a bed with yellow and orange flowered sheets, and a cracked blue dresser. This dresser, unlike every other bureau and closet in this house, does not contain any seventies-style ties, old scarves, or early feminist t-shirts. Instead every drawer is filled with letters.

Joe lived in Jamaica, Queens, with his parents and six younger sisters and brothers. His college yearbook said of him, "Even his own brilliance could not fathom the enigma that is Joe." Mary lived in Queens Village. She was the second child, and the oldest girl, in a family of seven. Her high school yearbook described her as, "Sincerity coupled with bubbling vivacity, scholastic excellence with literary talents, athletic prowess, sparkling wit." She would not have a college yearbook until many years later, because her father had died without much life insurance when she was seventeen years old. Her father's brother squeezed together the money for her older brother to continue school at St. John's, but Mary was just a girl.

Mary and Joe had met the summer of 1942, on a raft at Loon Lake in the Adirondacks. He was 28, she was 21. A week later, back in Queens, he took her to see Bambi. They saw each other often in the three months after Bambi became Prince of the forest, and before Joe was drafted. He kissed her for the first time on the day he left for the army.

They will get engaged the night before her 22nd birthday in August 1943 and will marry the next March. The wedding will not be fancy, since it was planned in about four days and no one had much money anyway. The reception will be in Mary's backyard. Joe will go off to war in Europe, though his bad vision will ensure that he never faces combat. They will have their first child while he is away. There will be short letters to Baby Mary Jo, my mother, enclosed with the longer ones to Mary. Then in 1946, when Mary Jo is eight months old, Joe will finally come home and the letters will end.

They will have five more children, and the children will have fourteen kids of their own. Joe will die of Alzheimer's disease in May of 1987. Mary will become a lobbyist and counselor for victims of the disease and their families. She will become even more involved with her church, and even more of a rock for her distressingly heathen children and grandchildren. Mary will die in April 2004 of Progressive Supranuclear Palsy.

My grandparents' generation has been called "The Greatest Generation." They survived the depression, they fought Hitler. Yes, they did, but many of them also contributed to horrible racial injustice, and a few of them dropped the bomb. I suppose that talking about our parents' and grandparents' moral superiority is an improvement over not trusting them because they're over forty, but it's not much of an improvement. It would be far more honest to say that they did some very good things, and some very bad things. They had fewer toys, and certainly they wrote better love letters, but they were more or less just like us.

To put it another way, generation schmeneration. I'm not going to even try to judge. Instead I will sit here and read these letters. I will learn that my mother's mother is more than the grandma who babysat for us almost every week for ten years, and who is always inappropriately freezing things. I will learn that my mother's father was far more than the sick, confused old man I remember.

Joe: December 25, 1942

The eastern skies are golden ocean that stretches from purple mountain to purple mountain. Over this glowing ocean, a halo of pale yellow reaches up until it is transmuted into the deepest blue. The shores of the golden sea are white sand, of course, but as they recede from the molten surf they become darker and grayer until a dull green color predominates. The cactus and yucca-studded beach stretches all the way to the brown mountains of the west which are roofed by the western sky trying to show that the Occident too is a colorful panorama. The blue-gray western clouds are blushing a genteel pink. Is it because they have seen the sun still beneath the eastern horizon or are they showing their anticipation of the home-coming moon--in all its white fullness sailing slowly serenely towards its western moorings?

The description is not so hot but it is an attempt to show that despite the radio and the jukebox, a white Christmas is not the only kind. In fact, I’m pretty sure that the first Christmas was more like our New Mexico one than the wintry Christmases of Queens Village and points north. All right, the fact that I’m writing letters on Christmas shows which kind I prefer. I think that all twelve of us who came down from Camp Upton feel quite lonely and homesick today.

I myself can’t conceive of being 2800 miles away from you and the Koches. Next door the bugler is practicing, outside cactus is growing, and if I look out the window I can see the desert all around and yet I still think that all I have to do is catch that next bus at Parsons Blvd and have you help me play with the various games and toys of the Nolan younger trio until Frank says, “Whose Christmas presents do you think these are anyway?”

Joe Meets Mary

Her name was Mary, of course. She was a blue-eyed, smiling, long-legged, cool looking girl--a trifle naive. A girl with class he thought when he first saw her,but young. A bus seems an awful place for things to start, but there was she on a bus going to church and planning to have a chocolate ice cream cone with sprinkelettes. He was going to church too, but she sat in back of him and that was that.

He said hello to her that afternoon or more likely she said hello to him. Again nothing happened--there are lots of shapely girls in blue bathing suits at a lake summer resort. The summer resort was one of those let’s-be-one’big-happy-family sort of places--it even had a social director and a social directrix. Naturally one afternoon there was a baseball game in which all the boys and girls (in those places they’re all boys and girls even if the boys and girls have big boys and girls of their own) were to participate. Well this particular boy and girl were antisocial or mutually social. They sat out the ball game on a raft. Long afterward he learned her reason why she was there but being a romantic still doesn’t believe it.

They talked about prosaic things--families and schools; after all he was a shy young man. She wasn’t. Maybe that is why he was sure it happened then. That’s the trouble with shy young men: they are not used to openhearted friendliness. He never knew what she saw in him, but for the rest of the week they were summer friends. He struggled a little bit--an inherent male instinct. Why one rainy afternoon they went to a Bing Crosby movie in separate groups. They had only a week, not even a full one.

However, this time it did happen on a bus. They had made some sort of plan to ride back to New York on the same bus. He from the summer resort, she from Albany where she was visiting. He was positive. She says it couldn’t haven happened then--that soon.

He didn’t know the proper method of courting a girl, not a beautiful one like her. Oh he was quite proper. The movies he took her to were always approved for adults and children. A baseball game, a few football games, a little bowling--that was about all. He didn’t have much time, altogether three months. He then went away as did twelve million other men young and old. Oh yes, he finally kissed her once. He was very proper and very shy and afraid she would say no.

July 27, 1945

Somewhere in France
Friday, July 27, 1945

Dear George,

Here I thought I was going to surprise you with the news of the arrival of my daughter on the 17th of this month. Instead you and Mark beat me to the punch by announcing your wedding to take place in September.

Congratulations George--after sixteen months and twenty-one days of wedded bliss ,I'm more than ever convinced that marriage is wonderful. My Mary and I are happier than ever be
because of our brand new daughter. According to the latest reports our Mary-Jo looks exactly llke my Mrs and not the least bit like her dad so she is going to be a real pretty little girl.

Again I'm saying am I surprised! So the last of the old yearbook committee is finally taking that step. I'm sure you and Mary will be happy--there's something about being married to a Mary that guarantees it. Even if she is my sister, I think you're a lucky man, George. There won't be a dull moment at your place with Mary around--I know there never was at the Koches. The gal can talk or have you discovered that for yourself? I like them beautiful and talkative myself--I forget you've already met my Mrs. It will be nice having you for a brother-in-law George and I 'm not saying that because we can use a dentist in the family.

Mary tells me you've stationed permanently at Lovell General, you lucky dog. I bet you're glad to exchange Massachusetts for India. How was it there? I'm over here in a "vacation" camp hoping that the Japs decide to give up. On the whole I've had it pretty easy over in the ETO. My only contribution to the war effort was a six week period on d.s. at a PW hospital. Aided by a staff of German PW'S I functioned as a registrar's office. It was nice work but it didn't last long enough. I was lucky enough to get a three-day pass to Paris last week. Paris is really a beautiful city and I was a regular tourist seeing all the sights: Notre Dame, Arc de Triumphe, the Louvre with its Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo, a boat ride on the Seine, a tour of Versailles, the Montmartre, the Folies Bergere, the Opera, the Opera Comique, and a host of other high spots.

I sure would like to get home to your wedding but I'm afraid that the army and the Japanese won't cooperate. I hear the two of you will start housekeeping right away. Although we already have a family, my Mary and I still have that experience in front of us. I'll probably be coming to you or Mary for advice. However you tell Mary that she better not try pulling your rank ton the Joe Koches.

Congratulations again, I say, and mine and Mary's best wishes for lots of happiness to the two of you.

Sincerely,
Joe

Army Life

"I recall that on one Sunday afternoon, about five hundred years ago, someone told me how the army made a friend of theirs so much bolder. I hope you're not drawing a parallel. If you had higher mathematics at Queens college, you show know that, according to Riemannian geometry, there are no parallels. It's not the army, Mary; it's the fountain pen for a mighty man with pen and ink, am I. In all these years it's been a hidden talent.

Since one Nolan at least is interested in the army, I should begin by describing the process of Uptonizing. The prospective soldiers arrive in Camp Upton (I can't tell you how since that is a troop movement and troop movements are military secrets) late in the afternoon , and the balance of the day and night is spent in being acclimated. This involves standing out in the open, swept by cold winds (and rain if there is any) until the body temperature is about 40 degrees, and then marched into a building to thaw out. Just so this time is not wasted, they dish out either a meal or a test.

I was lucky because my first day ended at 11 pm; if my name began with a "z" it probably would have concluded at about 4 am. The next day the process is repeated beginning at 5 am--it is dark at this unearthly hour . However, after breakfast and after the inevitable standing around being counted and recounted , we were marched into the processing unit. I entered one door as a civilian and came out a fully uniformed soldier (in fact, carrying three other complete uniforms in a large canvas bag), possessing an insurance policy, and bearing the imprints of typhoid, anti-tetanus, and smallpox innoculations. After that the entire group is marched to the cinema to see a double feature entitled, "What Every Young Soldier Should Know." Thus ends the process and the solider is usually sent to some other camp for basic training.

But you are probably saying to yourself, Joe must be still at Camp Upton because the envelope says so. Yes I am still out here in the woods. It seems that I'm on a special detail; the requirements for which seem to (1) that you wear glasses, and (2) that you pass the intelligence test (I got 151 but I always knew I was a genius). After working for a week I don't think the second requirement is at all necessary. On the whole work is rather easy--just routine clerical work handling the records of the incoming soldiers ,but there is certainly enough of it.

Because of our work we live in a special row of tents. I'm sleeping in a 6 man tent and believe it or not, my principal complaint is that it is too hot. One of the soldiers in my tent was formerly a fireman on a Coast Guard rum chaser during prohibition days: he has appinted himself chief of the tent stove and he keeps it red hot night and day. Even on the windiest days the temperature inside our tent is about 85. We use coal so we're not affected by oil rationing. Heh, Heh."

Army Life

"I recall that on one Sunday afternoon, about five hundred years ago, someone told me how the army made a friend of theirs so much bolder. I hope you're not drawing a parallel. If you had higher mathematics at Queens college, you show know that, according to Riemannian geometry, there are no parallels. It's not the army, Mary; it's the fountain pen for a mighty man with pen and ink, am I. In all these years it's been a hidden talent.

Since one Nolan at least is interested in the army, I should begin by describing the process of Uptonizing. The prospective soldiers arrive in Camp Upton (I can't tell you how since that is a troop movement and troop movements are military secrets) late in the afternoon , and the balance of the day and night is spent in being acclimated. This involves standing out in the open, swept by cold winds (and rain if there is any) until the body temperature is about 40 degrees, and then marched into a building to thaw out. Just so this time is not wasted, they dish out either a meal or a test.

I was lucky because my first day ended at 11 pm; if my name began with a "z" it probably would have concluded at about 4 am. The next day the process is repeated beginning at 5 am--it is dark at this unearthly hour . However, after breakfast and after the inevitable standing around being counted and recounted , we were marched into the processing unit. I entered one door as a civilian and came out a fully uniformed soldier (in fact, carrying three other complete uniforms in a large canvas bag), possessing an insurance policy, and bearing the imprints of typhoid, anti-tetanus, and smallpox innoculations. After that the entire group is marched to the cinema to see a double feature entitled, "What Every Young Soldier Should Know." Thus ends the process and the solider is usually sent to some other camp for basic training.

But you are probably saying to yourself, Joe must be still at Camp Upton because the envelope says so. Yes I am still out here in the woods. It seems that I'm on a special detail; the requirements for which seem to (1) that you wear glasses, and (2) that you pass the intelligence test (I got 151 but I always knew I was a genius). After working for a week I don't think the second requirement is at all necessary. On the whole work is rather easy--just routine clerical work handling the records of the incoming soldiers ,but there is certainly enough of it.

Because of our work we live in a special row of tents. I'm sleeping in a 6 man tent and believe it or not, my principal complaint is that it is too hot. One of the soldiers in my tent was formerly a fireman on a Coast Guard rum chaser during prohibition days: he has appinted himself chief of the tent stove and he keeps it red hot night and day. Even on the windiest days the temperature inside our tent is about 85. We use coal so we're not affected by oil rationing. Heh, Heh."

Procrastination, Dad Style

After reading Dad's description of studying for his actuarial exams, everyone in the Hawkins-Graves family will conclude that their study habits are genetic.

It was my intent to begin this letter with a lecture on procrastination delivered in Prof. Koch's inimitable style. This is how I used to work it. In those days I got off at 4:30 so I would be home considerably before 6.
Since dinner would be ready at 6 it was hardly worthwhile to begin studying. So I would start reading the LI Daily Press. After supper it would be only a few minutes till Lowell Thomas comes on so I might as well wait. (Please excuse the shift of tenses to the narrative present.) Well, a fellow needs some amusement and what's fifteen minutes; so to WEAF for the Chesterfield program with Fred Waring. Time out to rest so now it's 7:30. The half hour from 7:30 to 8:00 was really the difficult time to waste. I usually couldn't think of a valid excuse for not studying. Since I wasn't a lawyer, I usually got by without one.

Of course, everyone knows that the good radio programs come on a 8 o'clock so I was saved. This was good for Monday and Tuesday nights. Wednesday was a tougher struggle for I knew if I could get by Wednesday, I was saved for the rest of the week. What would be the use of studying for the last two days of the week? Occasionally, though, I would lose on Wednesday nights and I would have to make some attempt at getting to work. I usually got seated at my desk about 9 but I was still struggling. I could rearrange the papers on my desk for ten or fifteen minutes ,but finally I would have to pick up my book. However, there was still life in the old procrastinator: instead of opening the textbook at the assigned chapter, I could skip a hundred pages or so and then begin reading there. If I was near the end of the book, there were always other ones to look over. At approximately 10:30 the struggle would be over. It always puzzled me why I felt so tired after studying for only three hours.

Dad and Vanessa

I wonder how many of his grandchildren remember Grandpa's reading to them? Vanessa is about 16 months old and is utterly captivated. The picture is taken at 827 Henry Street; the stairs are instantly recognizable. Given how many countless hours Mom and Dad read to their children and grandchildren, very few pictures exist.

Reading with Dad

Dad is reading to Stephen, Michael, and Peter. The date and ages puzzle me. Michael must be at least three; Dad is reading from a huge book. But if it is 1959, Peter would be 7 and Stephen would be 10. Stephen looks younger than that. I love Michael's pjamas. Were we expected to be dressed for bed before Dad read to us? Did Dad always keep his tie on after he came home from work?

I remember the curtains and the lamp better than the couch. I can't figure out what Dad is reading. Surely it is not the family bible, which is that color. Looking back, Dad and Mom didn't spent much time reading picture books. We were exposed to much more challenging books when we were very young. Mom also went out of the way to take us to the Hempstead Library because the Uniondale Library was so inadequate. She let us take out more books at a time than any parents I have met in my entire library career.

When Mom and Dad visited me at the hospital after Vanessa was born, they bought children's books as a present.