Spitball Army

[Written to Alice in Acton, Indiana.  Return addressed: Richard, Ward 11, U.S.N.H., St. Albans, L.I., N.Y.  Postmarked at Jamaica, N.Y., on 12 Feb 1946 at 1 P.M.]

Feb. 12, 1946

Hello Sweetheart,

     Well, here we go bright and early this morning.  The time is now exactly eight minutes until eight o’clock Eastern Standard Time.  We had a little change last night.  At midnight Mayor O’Dwyer shut down the stores, factories, places of entertainment including bars, night clubs, and shows, and part of the subways.  All because of the tug boat strike.  They can’t get enough coal over from Jersey.  I guess the city is a pretty dead place.  I don’t know whether it will effect the hospital or not.  I don’t think it will.  Yesterday’s paper said that the civilian hospitals were getting first priorities.  I guess the only tug boats operating in the harbor are Army and Navy.  The harbor is supposed to be full of loaded freighters but they can’t come into the piers and unload without the tugs assistance.  You probably saw that the Queen Mary just arrived with a load of GI brides.  Army tugs brought her into the pier.  That reminds me of another little article I read in the paper yesterday about a GI groom from London.  He married a WAC over three years ago and he is still trying to get over here to her.  He was griping because all the GI brides could get over here but he couldn’t.  Too, too bad, isn’t it?

     We went to the show last night and saw “Spellbound.”  What a picture that was!!  I don’t think there was hardly a sane person in it.  After you saw the picture, you werent even sure about yourself.  When we got back to the ward, there was a show on here.  It was short subjects.  I don’t know how we rate all the entertainment in this ward.  They are overdoing it so much that I am even getting tired of movies.

     We had sick call yesterday.  The doctors didn’t even look at my shoulder.  They just ordered some kind of muscles test and said they would operate in a week or so.  The scab came off Sunday night in the shower but it’s O.K.  Now the only thing left between me and the operation as far as I am concerned is that the muscles are still a little firm around the scar.  They should soften up sufficiently before much longer.  I can sure tell the a difference in what they were a week ago.  Then all I’ll have to do is talk Anderson into operating.

     The only time I can go down to Brooklyn now is on Friday morning.  This friday is pay day so I guess I won’t go until I at least find out if they are going to pay me.  Let’s hope.

     Good-night Sweetheart
          I love you with all my heart
               Pleasant dreams
                    Goodnight Sweetheart
                              x x
                                   ‘Nite

The Salvador Dali-designed dream sequence from Alfred Hitchcock’s Spellbound (1945), followed by other film clips designed by Dali: