August 28, 1942

Camp Kilmer, New Jersey

Dear Folksies,

After writing on Wednesday noon, I loafed around here, took cleaning to the cleaners, etc. Then Lois and I took the usual 5:22PM train and went directly from the Penn Station to 181^st Street where Lenny and Babs live. We had a very nice steak dinner; looked at the pictures Lois and I brought up for them to see; and then played bridge until around 11:30 P.M. After we left, Lois and I decided we would have some fun and get driven around Central Park in one of those old-fashioned horse carriages. It was fun. Then to the Roosevelt Hotel this time.

We got up yesterday around 8 A.M., had breakfast, did a little shopping at Woolworths, and then took the subway out to the Montefiore Hospital to see Sara Mack.

After leaving Sara, we asked the doorman at the Hospital how to get to the Bronx Zoo. He told us but said it was quite a walk if we intended walking. From the directions he gave us, however, we figured that it was really probably a good walk for a New Yorker but would be a minor distance for us. Well, actually, it turned out to be a pretty good walk but as it was not too warm, we enjoyed it very much.

We got to the Zoo and walked all around it. It is really a swell zoo – in many respects just like the new Fleishhaker Zoo. The Monkey Isle at Fleishhacker’s, of course, cannot be beat but the areas where they have the lions, the deers, etc. at the Bronx are really swell. The whole thing was most interesting. What particularly intrigued us was that there were so many areas where they had birds – pelicans, cranes, and other small and large birds – in enclosures that had fences only about 2 ft. high with no tops other than the sky, and yet the animals stay there most peacefully – why they do not go and fly away I cannot understand. No, they did not have big weights on their necks either, and I don’t think that their wings were clipped, sooooo????

At the moment we are on another “alert” but apparently we are not “it” and anticipate that we will again be off tonite. I hope we are as we have a date for dinner with Helen and Mischa tonite.

I was sorry not to be able to talk to all of you on the phone Wednesday nite but it is practically impossible to hear any of you if more than one are on the phone at your end. What would be better would be for all to be in the same room and time yourselves, giving each about 30 seconds. Actually that is a pretty long time and I know that ordinarily we all talk much less than the allotted 3 minutes.

                    Loads of love,

P.S. Now the wives are beginning to show up. The first one here was Carroll Russell’s wife Loretta. She came because her family is in N.Y and she intends to live here. Then Marv Hodgson’s wife came, as she has family in Pennsylvania, so she may stay also. Now 9 wives are here of the 27 in the unit. Wally Greene’s story, however, was the funniest. His wife was up the Redwood Highway and when she got back, she found that many of the wives had gone. She decided she wasn’t going to miss a trick, so she hopped the next train. The first thing Wally knew about it was when she phoned him from New Brunswick. He practically had to be revived.

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