Dear Gamidy and Skipper

This is instead of a Christmas present. I have been kept behind an iron fence since Dec. 11 and so have not been able to do any Christmas shopping. Atlanta is tantalizingly only a few miles away too. All this restriction is because I can’t take Morse Code fast enough without making occasional mistakes! Some of us are, however, getting off from late afternoon on Christmas Eve until midnight of the day after Christmas, the rest having their leave divided between the following week-end and New Year’s. It will be sad not to get home, but most of us didn’t expect any leave at all, and I’ve been invited to dinner on both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. This will be my first taste of southern hospitality and it should be enjoyable. It’s strange to be learning to fly for the Navy and not to be flying nor on board of a ship nor even by the ocean for that matter. We’re here for ground school, which consists of such subjects as navigation, drill, aerodynamics, naval science and Morse Code. They are of course necessary but not half so exciting as flying. This we shall get again at Jacksonville or possibly some other advanced training base. There’s nothing like it, yet I never thought seriously about it until six months ago. It does, however, seem much more worthwhile than waiting to be drafted.

Perhaps at Jacksonville I shall get a better chance to look at the country. One finds new country fascinating at least for a while. Florida will be my thirty-eighth state.

Well, Merry Christmas to all.

               Love

                       Toots