December 13, 1952
Lost at sea
Hi Norma,
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| From left: Danny Kaye, Vera Ellen, Bing Crosby, "White Christmas," ca. 1954 |
It will be at least a week before I can mail this, but I was thinking about you and decided to write anyway.
We are two days out of Honolulu, going to Yokosuka, Japan. We are supposed to arrive there the 22nd of December.
I probably told you already, but they worked the hell out of us in Pearl Harbor and on the inspection there, we got a "Good." I don't know just how good that is.
We haven't had any trouble with our catapults and arresting gear for about two weeks now. Maybe we won't have any more. I hope so.
Did I tell you, I saw Vera Ellen (the actress) in a night spot in Honolulu? Not exactly Honolulu, a town called Pearl City, just outside Honolulu.
I suppose she went there to avoid the crowds. A drunk swab (sailor) kept going over to her table and telling her how beautiful she was, also how he would like to take her out. At first, she was getting a kick out of him, but finally she got tired of it. Then the bouncer tossed the swab out. She was with some big, good-looking guy I've never seen or heard of. In fact, I didn't even learn his name. It might have been her body guard.
[Editor's note: Curious phrasing in the paragraph above and it makes me wonder if Jim was the drunken swab making a play for Vera Ellen or if he was drinking with the "swab." If there was no interaction between Jim and Vera Ellen, how would he be in a position to learn her companion's name?]
It looks like we will be in Japan for Christmas. Oh well, as I said before, it beats Korea.
"Oh," I almost forgot, we haven't had any pile-ups since you started writing again. I think you bring good luck.
I heard on the radio about that guy, Delmore, dying. That's tough. I used to like to hear them sing.
From now on Norm, when I tell you something that concerns me, you believe me, not something that someone else tells you, O.K.?
It seems some people are trying to take care of me. Every time I go out with a girl a few times, someone is getting me married. Even my mother (the dear, old soul) gave me a mother to son talk on the subject of matrimony while I was home. HA She thinks I should marry before I get out of the service or immediately after. HA I'm not the marrying type. I'll take that back. Every guy wants to get married some time, but I'm in no hurry. I'm only twenty-two, so I've got lots of time left. I can't see those guys who marry at 18 to 20. They spend time taking care of a wife and kids that should be spent out looking around the country, getting a practical education.
I didn't even finish high school, but I think I know as much as a college graduate who hasn't been out of the States.
And when I've seen enough and been around enough, so that I can make a good living for a woman and make her an interesting as well as good husband, then I'll get married. You may not agree with me, but that's the way I look at it.
And another thing, if a tourist went to Japan, he would go see things like the shrines in Tokyo, or the abbeys in Yokohama, or the remains of the atom bomb in Nagasaki. Those things don't interest me. I like to be with the people in the middle class, people like myself who work for a living. I like to sit and sip sake with them and talk. Of course, we have trouble understanding each other, but we manage. That way I learn their habits and customs and ways of doing things that are simpler than the way I previously did the thing. That, to me, is an education that surpasses anything a college could offer.
"Boy," I got all wound up here and can't seem to stop. Hope you don't mind.
Glad to hear you are taking piano lessons now. You can play for me. I really love to hear a piano.
That damn shorthand confuses me. I guess that's one thing I can't learn traveling around.
And Merry Christmas to you, honey. I hope yours is better than mine.
The election suited me O.K. That's the way I voted. [Editor's note: Eisenhower defeated Stevenson in the presidential race.]
I'm losing some weight, but not much as yet, but I will this winter.
Your bowling is improving, keep at it, it is good exercise, if nothing else.
Well, "beautiful," I've "yapped" long enough for a while. Sometimes I get in a mood that I could write all night and this is one of them.
But I've got to sign off. So, answer soon, "sweet thing."
Love,
Jim
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