Dear Folks,

A rainy Sunday morning finds me in one of Chicago’s larger hotels, not because I haven’t reported to the new station yet, but because of a day off. We were given no proceed time after all and reported there yesterday after a ride via Nashville, Louisville and Indianapolis and then a night in another hotel. Only one other fellow came up, an old friend from the seaplane squadron, Paul Garbler, and we were lucky enough to have a compartment. The trip took around 30 hours—fast train. It seemed strange to catch up with Spring and see dogwoods and redbuds blooming again and lots of trees still minus their leaves. Yesterday morning the temperature in the city dropped to 29.8°.

It looks as if I’d be here for a while after all unless we are given some kind of preference as potential instructors since there is another bottleneck, which has put things two weeks or so behind schedule. The actual flying involves only a few hours.

This wouldn’t be a bad place to be for a while because Chicago offers plenty of amusement. Glenview, however, is well out of town, say around 25 miles, and transportation, at least to the beginning of the subway, and on the return from there to the station, has its problems, though there are some busses. For some reason too our quarters at Glenview are barracks, apparently designed for enlisted men, and though this doesn’t do us any harm, we are without many usual conveniences and comforts.

Well I guess I’ll just have to be patient. If only they’d give us two or three days off so, for instance, I could stop in at Ann Arbor, but we shall have to stick around, apparently for three musters every day, even when not flying, the first at 7:30 A.M., so days are “ruined” and mornings after an evening in town grim. So ends a dull letter.

Love

Toots

P.S. But don’t worry, I’m still getting leave sometime.

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