Spitball Army

He could shield his garden from heat or cold, but mercurial humans pummeled him unmercifully. So he spent more time pulling weeds.

– Written by @Ralphley.

[Written to Alice in Frankfort, Indiana.  “Frankfort” crossed out in purple ink and replaced with “Wingate,” and “c/o [Uncle] Art ______.”  Return addressed: Richard, Co. G, 2nd Bn., 1st Mar., c/o F.P.O., San Francisco, Calif.  Postmarked at U.S. Navy, on 23 Jun 1945, at Frankfort, Ind. on 29 Jun 1945 at 1 P.M., and at Wingate on 30 Jun 1945 at 9 A.M.  Envelope stamped on front, “Passed by Naval Censor,” and initialed by the Censor.]

June 22, 1945

Hello Sweetheart,

     Well, I’m making a little headway.  I’m getting closer and closer all the time: – Okinawa, Guam, and now the Hawaian Islands.  How am I doing?  Two more stops – West Coast, U.S.A. and Great Lakes.  Boy, is that wishful thinking!!  I think I’ll make it though Sweetheart.  I hope it doesn’t take too long.  Of course, nobody knows but what little I can find out, [CENSORED].  IF (that is really a big word.) I do follow that course, do you suppose I would have any visitors?  I presume you are back in that neighborhood.  I don’t know for sure.  I haven’t had any mail for over 3 weeks and it probably won’t catch me [CENSORED].  I just made a gentleman’s bet with the guy next to me that I [CENSORED].  It’s crazy but I can dream, can’t I?

     I love you so much, Sweetheart.  All I can do is lay here and dream about you.  You are always on my mind, Sweetheart and there is nothing I like better then thinking of you.  I try to imagine just what you are doing.  I’m always with you, Sweetheart.  It will be so wonderful when we are back together.  Maybe some of these days we will be able to live a normal life.  I’m sure the day will come.  This waiting is getting me down though.  I know I have quite a while to wait before I’m completely patched up; but that waiting would be so much easier if I were near you and could see you occassionally.  That’s all I’m doing now – just waiting.  I think they have done all they can for me.  From now on it is up to Mother Nature and time.  Nobody seems to have any idea as to how long it will take.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

     Let’s both hope and pray that each letter may be the [CENSORED].

     Goodnight Sweetheart
          I love you with all my heart.
               Pleasant Dreams
                    ‘Nite Sweetheart

Monday, returning manager, white layer cake. Friday, retiring supervisor, Italian cream cake. Weekend, 23 pink slips, no cake.

– Written by @Ralphley.

Card is untitled on the front.

Printed on back of postcard:

SDC-13

HOTEL DEL CORONADO
Coronado, California
The Del Coronado is one of the few old-time famous and fashionable resort hotels in the country.  Located on a oeninsula in San Diego Bay.

R.W. Chase, photographer.

Card was postmarked in San Diego, Calif, on 16 May 1958 at 6 p.m.  It is addressed to Mrs. Alice Ekelman, c/o Southeast Machinery Company, 1525 S. Andrews Ave., Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  A two-cent U.S. postage stamp is affixed.  Text of the written message on back of postcard reads:

Well – we made it.  3250 miles of driving in 8 days & saw New Orleans (French Quarter), Grand Canyon & of course all kinds of mountain-desert-beach etc. scenery along the way.  Took southern route to escape flood area.  Wonderful trip.

Love, Hattie

Publishing information:  H.S. Crocker Co., Inc., Los Angeles, Calif.  Distr. by Chase’s Color Card Co., San Diego.

I am the family face; flesh perishes, I live on, projecting trait and trace through time to times anon, and leaping from place to place over oblivion.
-Thomas Hardy

It is the common wonder of all men, how among so many million faces, there should be none alike.
-Sir Thomas Browne

Our masks, always in peril of smearing or cracking, in need of continuous check in the mirror or silverware, keep us in thrall to ourselves, concerned with our surfaces.
-Carolyn Kizer

If I were two-faced, would I be wearing this one?
-Abraham Lincoln

What is a face, really? Its own photo? Its make-up? Or is it a face as painted by such or such painter? That which is in front? Inside? Behind? And the rest? Doesn’t everyone look at himself in his own particular way? Deformations simply do not exist.
-Pablo Picasso

The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes.
-William Shakespeare

The face of a child can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
-Jack Handy

Approximate playing time: 78 minutes.

1. The Coral Sea  “Look at Her Face”  (2006)
2. David Byrne with Camille  “Pretty Face”  (2010)
3. Paul McCartney  “My Brave Face”  (1989)
4. Wilco  “You Are My Face”  (2007)
5. Blind Boys of Alabama  “Just Wanna See His Face”  (2001)
6. Merle Haggard with Carl Jackson  “Must You Throw Dirt In My Face?”  (2003)
7. Kathleen Edwards  “A Face in the Crowd”  (2004)
8. The Beatles  “I’ve Just Seen a Face”  (1965)
9. The Who (as The High Numbers)  “I’m the Face”  (1964)
10. Spike Jones  “Der Fuehrer’s Face”  (1942)
11. Fats Waller  “My Window Faces South”  (1937)
12. Ed Robinson  “Face It”  (1972)
13. Earth, Wind & Fire  “On Your Face”  (1976)
14. Wes Montgomery  “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Her Face”  (1962)
15. Valerie Carter  “Face of Appalachia”  (1977)
16. Neil Halstead  “Paint a Face”  (2008)
17. Joni Mitchell  “Love Puts on a New Face”  (1998)
18. She & Him  “I Thought I Saw Your Face Today”  (2008)
19. Bee Gees  “Sea of Smiling Faces”  (1972)
20. Gingersol  “Face Up Again”  (2003)
21. Los Lobos  “Angels with Dirty Faces”  (1992)
22. Peter Frampton  “Lines on My Face”  (1975)

[audio:Fred_FM_playlist_091210.mp3]
Fred FM playlist (12 September 2010)

Some notes on the songs:

• “Pretty Face” is drawn from the concept album, Here Lies Love, which chronicles the political and social career of the Phillipines’ Imelda Marcos, she of the sizable shoe collection.  The album is Evita-esque, but with a discofied edge – both of these aspects come through in this song.
• The Rolling Stones had a little mini-jam on their album Exile on Main Street with “I Just Want to See His Face,” and there it was little more than a trifle.  The Blind Boys of Alabama convert it into a rave-up.  Not bad for a bunch of old guys who are older even than Charlie Watts.
• I’ll be happy if I never hear Tom Petty’s Full Moon Fever album once more in my lifetime, as it has been played to death in my presence.  But Kathleen Edwards does a fine job interpreting one of the better songs on that Petty record: “A Face in the Crowd.”  I’m inclined to like it anyway, if you know me well, because I’m a weak sucker for anything Ms. Edwards does.
• Regarding the name change of The Who to The High Numbers (from wikipedia):

The Detours changed their name to The Who in February 1964, and, with the arrival of [drummer Keith] Moon that year, the line-up was complete. However, for a short period in summer 1964, under the management of mod Peter Meaden, they changed their name to The High Numbers, releasing “Zoot Suit/I’m the Face”, a single aimed at appealing to mod fans. When the single failed to chart, the band reverted to The Who.

• It is a small commercial crime that Valerie Carter has escaped notice of the general public for practically her entire musical career.  In the 1970s, she released two stellar albums of sultry pop: the first with a folksy Americana Ronstadt-ian edge; the second, nipping at the heels of the disco era, with a style that presaged the coming of Sade.  But Ms. Carter’s claim to fame has probably been as a singing partner to James Taylor.  If you’ve seen James in concert, chances are that you’ve heard and seen Valerie right up there on stage with him.  Check out her discography as vocalist on other artists’ projects and be amazed.
• Spike Jones wrote “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” and had some success with it.  But when the ode to passing gas at Adolf Hitler was translated to the universal language of a Donald Duck cartoon, it won a 1943 Academy Award.  A pretty ballsy cartoon for that or any time.  Can you imagine Disney putting their name on something like this today?  Neither can I.

I check the time on my wrist and notice the date. In digital form, it appears a brand on my skin, a match to the one on my memory.

[Written to Alice in Frankfort, Indiana.  Return addressed: Richard, Co. G, 2nd Bn., 1st Mar., c/o F.P.O., San Francisco, Calif.  Postmarked at U.S. Navy, on 20 Jun 1945.  Envelope stamped on front, “Passed by Naval Censor,” and initialed by the Censor.]

June 19, 1945

Hello Sweetheart,

     No, I’m not in the Navy [in reference to the stationery]. I just can’t be choosy. I have 2 choices – this or a type of tissue paper that comes in rolls. It would be too hard to unroll the other so I’ll use this.

     Well, I thought I would be away from here by now but no soap. I expect to leave any time and I’m more than ready. Maybe tomorrow is my day. I’ll get there yet. One of these days, you are going to answer the telephone and find me on the other end of the line. Yep, I’m coming back to you whether you like it or not. Believe me, you better like it. Is that clear? While we’re asking questions – did you know that I’m very much in love with you? Well, I do love you Sweetheart. You are all I’m interested in – all I want.

     Sorry Sweetheart, I had to leave you for awhile. I can only sit up so long at a time. It doesn’t bother my shoulder any but it sure gets my left hip. The cast is pretty heavy as it is and with the added weight of my left arm, it really cuts in.  Naturally it rests on a bone which doesn’t help matters at all.

     You know, I thought I was pretty good when it came to a matter of patience.  After all the waiting and standing in line I’ve done since I’ve been in the outfit, I’ve seen anything quite like this.  I’m really beginning to lose all my patience.  I know I have quite a wait ahead of me before I get out of the hospital but I can’t see why I have to spend that time out hear.  I feel sure I’m coming back to the States before the thing heals up so why can’t I put in my time back there where I’ll be able to see you occassionally?  It has been exactly 3 weeks ago today since I got hit and just what has been accomplished.  The day I got hit I had an X-ray taken, an operation to clean up the wound, and a cast put on.  Approximately one week later I got another cast put on.  Now, in the week I’ve been in this hospital, I’ve had one x-ray taken.  The rest of the time I’ve just been waiting.  The Doctor comes around every day and asks you how you feel.  The answer is always the same – “O.K.” or “Pretty good.”  That’s my treatment.  Whereas before – in stead of training they made us mad enough to fight.  Now I guess they are trying to make us mad enough to get well.

     I feel better now after doing my griping and getting it out of my system.  I should tear this up now and write a decent letter but I went to all this trouble so I’m going to mail it anyway.  Now – all I need to fix everything up just fine is for the censor to reject or cut this all out.

     Darn it, this makes me very unhappy.  This isn’t the type of letter I want to write Sweetheart.  When I’m laying in bed I can think of a lot of things I want to write and tell you.  Then I get up and try to write what I’ve been thinking.  I can’t keep my mind on what I want to write though.  I unconsciously think of this cast cutting into my hip; and then when I do get something to write, I can’t put it down as I want it.  It just doesn’t turn out right.  It seems I consentrate more on my writing than the contents.  I’ve almost forgotten how to write anyway and now it is more difficult than it ordinarily should be.  I hope you can decipher these scratches.  After it gets cold, I can hardly make it out myself.  I keep trying though.  Who knows, some day I may learn to write.  I haven’t lost hopes yet.

     I can’t seem to say what I want to.  It looks like I’ll have to fall back on these 3 little words.  They tell the whole story though – short and sweet.  I love you, Sweetheart.

     Don’t worry about me Sweetheart.  You know I’m getting along pretty good when I start griping.  That’s the best sign there is.  I’m doing O.K., Sweetheart.  As usual, I’m just waiting – – —

     Good-night Sweetheart
          I love you with all my heart
               Pleasant Dreams
                    ‘Nite Sweetheart

Um, sorry, I meant Nutjob.

(photo: spitballarmy.com)

To be fair, I did see two candied fruit loaf factories as I drove through Claxton on 25 August 2010.