March 3, 1942
Dear Folks,
Thanks for the nifty wrapper. It’s just right. Thank Nance for the sweater, which I’ll acknowledge as soon as I have time to do it justice. Golf balls all came, and some have been used already, with my old irons and with a new set of second-hand Bobby Jones woods (nos. 1, 2 & 4). The Ponte Vedra course is an excellent one, but there are several water holes, one an island (except for tee!), and the rough is very bad. I played 27 holes with Don Watson on Sunday, beating him 2 and 1 in spite of a worse total score the 18 before lunch (!), but losing badly the last nine. Short holes are rare, and I averaged almost up to sevens. Ma’s bag is quite ample.
Thanks, too, belatedly, for filling out the Income Tax Blank. I had quite a time with it because of my 1941 Navy pay, which didn’t come out “even” what with allowance for food here and none there, flight pay here and not there and not in even months either.
Strange as it may seem, I do like to have my spelling mistakes corrected. It makes me think I shall continue to improve, as I have in the past, progressing from a very poor speller to a medium one.
We haven’t any snowdrops, but violets have been blooming. This doesn’t mean much, however. February as a whole was not too pleasant—very little delicious weather—and March has got off to a windy start.
Ground school continues to be pretty interesting, but takes more and more time, this particularly applying to navigation, which I have some very discouraging moments with. I hate to hurry with problems and have to. Aerology has been extremely interesting, though complicated. We have now been introduced to two more methods of communication besides International Morse by radio and the same by blinker, namely, signal flags (one particular flag for each letter) and semaphore (boy scout stuff with arms in different positions—A quick brown fox, etc., by tomorrow—sending).
Well, I must get down to work. Next week-end, incidentally, may be my last for a long time. Unfortunately Phil has a make-up exam on Sunday, so if I go to the beach, it will have to be with someone else. Most Sundays we will be flying thenceforward, but will get Wed. evening off and occasionally other times.
Love to All,
T.R.