Monday, October 6, 2008

Frequent visits to the PO

The cigarettes arrived from W in Texas. I wrapped up one carton and headed to the Post Office. The clerk said Was this item requested? I said Yes. (it was requested on the East side of the George Washington Bridge) I showed him a wrinkled envelope and luckily he was too busy to check it. This was repeated until the last carton was delivered. No letters had arrived yet from S.
There had been stories in the papers that the convoys leaving the USA were taking long circuitous routes to Europe in order to outwit the U boats waiting for them. When a letter from S finally arrived he mentioned the boredom every body suffered from and the discomfort on board. Their bathing consisted of cold salty showers. There were no black spots in the letter which meant he had not broken any rules in telling me how long the trip took. When I came from Sweden a few years earlier the trip took 5 days. S told me his trip took over two weeks.

And then there was the words I longed for. How much he missed me and how wonderful that last night had been.

And then the zinger. Don't bother to send cigarettes. We have plenty here.

6 comments:

Book_Moth said...

Svensto, I'm really enjoying your blog! Please keep the stories coming.

I'm curious - did you keep a diary at any stage in your life? My grandfather, like you, could recount stories from the past very vividly. He never kept a diary but had an amazing memory for anecdotes, names and dates.

Perhaps you've told some of these stories many times, so you can easily recall the details. (It would appear that many of your relatives & friends reading the blog have heard some of the stories before - but not all of them.)

Any advice for us youngins? I'm only in my 20s, but already find it difficult to remember events clearly from my childhood/teenage years.

Dazed and Confused said...

That last sentence was great! The timing was perfect. I love reading your stories, I wish my grandparents had done this, they had so many stories,and I don't remember them all!

Thank you for sharing your experiences with us.

Kat said...

I just read through all of your posts. Marvelous!

Anonymous said...

Always that little punch line. Love it!

Joanna said...

Great punchline. It made me laugh out loud. Again, thanks for sharing your stories.

Miss Sub said...

haha! love it!