To Phyllis and Otto Goldschmid: Adak Island, 25 June 1944 -- "life up here is exactly as it was, only more so"

Dear two…

This will serve as a requisition for socks in whatever state of repair and of whatever strangeness in construction. Have you considered darning them with built-in holes at the heels to save wear and tear and also time? 

One of the quaint characters at large on this outpost already has a pair of purple stockings, a first pair at that. He wears them as a scarf. And one of the kids in our hut—Perry, the misplaced MP—got a pair from his girl. They were so small that he put a piece of pipe in one and has it hanging by his bed as an improvised billy stick.

As for the fudge, there is nothing I like better than fudge in my stockings. Christmas or otherwise. But what do you people use for sugar these days? I do not recall any beets blossoming in the backyard, or even a good government printing press in the garage?

Your letter, dated June 19, and the letter you and Rosa wrote from the houseboat, dated June 19, came in the same mail. I suspect tequila, or maybe the U.S. has gone on a doubletalk calendar since I drew this term of exile in Estatiland. 

Life up here is exactly as it was at the time I wrote before, only more so.  As one of the more profound philosophers in the operating room recently remarked, “There comes a time when monotony gets damned monotonous.”

We don’t hear the Corwin show up here. Why, I don’t know. It is the only one outside of the symphonies and “Information Please” that I really would like to hear. The shows that we hear are mainly those broadcast over a local station run by the army. The music and general amusement programs are sent up on records with the advertising removed. So far we are still getting shows that I heard while in Seattle. They sound much better with the blather about buying abridged.  …

The news programs that we hear are shortwaves from San Francisco and transcribed for rebroadcast over the local outlet. We hear them about an hour after they originate. Since these shows also serve as our shortwave propaganda news they are a bit strong on the sugar and leave one feeling mentally diabetic. Whenever possible I try to get a CBS outlet at home. I feel very possessive about the job Columbia is doing on radio reporting.

Down from the tree in August 1944: Bill Walton is at left, Robert Capa at right, and Ernest Hemingway in the middle.

(Ernest Hemingway Photograph Collection, Kennedy Library)

Remember the time you came up to the Time office with Rosa? I believe you met one of my roommates there, Bill Walton, a big, blue-eyed, baby-faced blond who looked as if he would be a bit afraid crossing a busy street. I see in the current Time that he jumped out of a place with a bunch of paratroops in the Normandy Invasion and got stuck, typewriter and all, in a pear tree. He had a nice boxed story in the War News of the edition with Eisenhower’s picture on the cover.

[Walton went on to become a painter, a good friend of John F. Kennedy (whom he encouraged to run for President) and the head of the federal arts commission. His New York Times obituary is here:

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/12/20/obituaries/william-walton-is-dead-at-84-headed-federal-fine-arts-panel.html

His Time column about the landing is at

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1101440619-640079,00.html

It starts like this:

I plunged out of the plane door happy to be leaving a ship that was heading toward flak and more Germans.The jump was from such low altitude there was only a moment to look around in the moonlight after my chute opened.

The fields looked so small that one couldn't miss a tree or hedge. Anyway I couldn't. I landed in a pear tree-a rather good shock absorber. But the trouble was I didn't filter on through to the ground; instead I dangled about three feet above ground unable to swing far enough to touch anything.

My chute harness slipped up around my neck in a strangle hold, covering the knife in my breast pocket. I was helpless, a perfect target for snipers and I could hear some of them not far away.In a hoarse, frightened voice I kept whispering the password, hoping someone would hear and help. From a nearby hedge I heard voices. I hung still a moment, breathless.

Friends. Then I heard them more clearly. Never has a Middle Western accent sounded better. I called a little louder. Quietly Sergeant Auge, a fellow I knew, crept out of the hedge, tugged at the branches and with his pigsticker cut my suspension cords. I dropped like an overripe pear ]

Getting back to the radio programs for a moment – I think it would take Corwin to make Wolfe bearable. Let me know if he does a number on my man Steinbeck.

You mentioned “Lady in the Dark” but do not say what you thought of it as a movie. Rosa and I saw it not long before I shipped out. We found it wildly amusing. The idea of an editor of a smart New York magazine being naively surprised at the basic elements of psychiatry, of a psychiatrist shouting at his clients, and of a girl who didn’t care about clothes wearing those tailored creations that Ginger Rogers had curving around her were all edging toward the surreal. And the dream sequences had all the dreamlike quality of a rare beefsteak or a two ton bomb. I did rather like the touch, though, of having Jon Hall appear in a dream standing beside a symbolic stallion.

Here is a dream for you to practice on. I had a dream that an order came out that everyone on Alaskan duty had to walk on his hands. And we all found it very easy to do. But I had great difficulty in typewriting while standing on my hands.

Speaking of shows, don’t miss “Gaslight.” In the first place, Ingrid Bergman. But besides that , it is a beauty of a job, just as good as it was as a play. …

Thanks again in advance for the fudge and footgear. And don’t forget the letters. (And here’s a hint for economy—it only takes six cents to airmail letters to an APO number.)

Best to both,

Murray

from Phyllis Goldschmid to Murray in the Aleutians, 19 June 1944 -- "we have been wondering whether your feet get cold"

Dear Murray, 

We were surely glad to get your letter and learn that you are safely wherever you are and that your life is not too disagreeable there. As a matter of fact we envy you the good library and the time to read. And your hutmates sound quite glamorous for the place, but I’m afraid that’s not the word to describe such a band although they sound at least like characters in a Gilbert and Sullivan opera.

We have been wondering whether your feet get cold where you are and if you have socks warm enough. At any rate I just learned to knit and I’m sending you the first pair. Of course they are purple and have quite a few critical mistakes, but I’m sure that with a little real effort you’ll be able to get them on and shape them to your size twelves. Incidentally, my pattern was a forlorn pair of army socks found behind a chest in the upstairs bedroom just a few months ago. How they got there I don’t know….but I finally identified them as yours by the hole in the heel. I took them to the USO one night and darned them but you must try to remember that I never darn Otto’s socks and that I think it’s much easier to knit a pair than darn them in that shape…and I do really.

We were surely happy to have Rosa and Carmen down. I’m awfully glad Carmen can be in Seattle with Rosa for she (Carmen) is surely a wonderful girl and good company for her (Rosa) who is a wonderful girl too I might add. We tried to sell them the idea of working in Shelton where life is so much nicer than in Seattle but I’m afraid they are settled.  At any rate we are counting on them to visit us often. 

Do you hear the Norman Corwin program there? They are working thru a trilogy on Americana literature and last night broadcast parts of Thomas Woolf. It was really very nice. Incidentally, I hope you heard Fred Allen when he had Norman Corwin as a guest star and presented on of his famous dramas with Corwin sound effects. I haven’t read any of Woolf’s works…I was scared away by his reputation of ponderosity, but I may take a stab at it now.

We saw our first movie in months, “Lady in the Dark” because Otto likes Ginger Rogers and I like movies. We then came home to delve into Freud and have lived in a horrible state of psychoanalysis ever since…in which every mistake has some devious subconscious meaning. We have actually had very little luck however in resolving our neuroses because I can’t remember my dreams and Otto claims to have none. Perhaps we just don’t have any neuroses. The study is extremely interesting however, and we would be delighted to quote reasonable rates to our friends for complete analysis.

We had a wonderful day yesterday. Otto got his first sailing in since Europe. I think you met the Waltons here.…those two nice giants. Their boat is a dandy and the wind was perfect. Otto was in his glory.

We hear thru the grapevine that Camilla is coming along well and will probably be thru with casts and braces before too long. We are indeed happy for her. 

We are thanking you for the job you did in pulling our potatoes last year for you missed a few and they are producing now. We will be happy to send you a bushel if you’d like.

We’ll send the socks right away whenever I can get some fudge think enough to hold its shape even where it’s cold. This atmosphere is very bad for fudge making. If the socks aren’t G.I. perhaps you can trade them to the natives.

Yours,

Otto and Phyllis