February 14, 1942

Postmark Feb 14, 1942

Saturday afternoon

Iowa City, Iowa

Dear father, mother, brothers and anyone else who may read this letter,

Well, a lot has happened since I wrote to you last. The main thing that has happened is of course that the navy has decided that Iowa City has some very good facilities for a naval cadet training center, so they are giving the U. of Iowa the inestimable privilege of turning over the Quadrangle, Hillcrest and the fieldhouse to the navy for that purpose. This of course means that the residents of the Quadrangle will have to be moved to other living quarters so that the naval cadets can move in. The evacuation of the Quadrangle will have to be complete by March 31. The residents will be moved out in sections at university expense and at least some kind of quarters provided for them either in private homes, the Law Commons, new dormitory units or cooperative dormitories. I will not have to move till the very last, that is on or by March 31.

My studies are coming along as usual — the same old rather uninteresting stuff. Their degree of intolerability is only slightly below that of conditions in general in the U.S. today.

The laundry bag arrived this morning. Thank you very much mama for the geranium, the butter & cheese, the cupcakes, the gredda-kaka (?) and of course, the clean clothes. Somehow or other, the laundry bag is more a means of getting good things to eat rather than a means of securing some clean clothes.

It has been snowing off and on here for several days. The snow has been coming down very nicely most of the time, sort of slowly and in big flakes. I love to watch it snow that way, even if it does mean a lot of slush thereafter. The temperature however has been hanging around freezing all of the time.

The school program down here has been accelerated. Spring vacation and exam week have gone overboard. This does not mean there will be no finals, rather it means that each final will be given in the last class period or periods and will be shorter than usual. This means that the semester closes May 10, and that the next day May 11, the summer semester opens. There is however about 3 days along in there when I plan to come home. The summer school will be over July 31, so that I suppose I will go to Calif about one month earlier than I had previously planned. Every time I think of it I sort of get griping sensations in my stomach. I can’t see why I seem fated to fool around doing what I don’t want to. I suppose you can’t expect anything else, however in this very democratic country.

I went to the swimming meet between Minn & Iowa last night. I should have studied but I was fed up for awhile. It was rather dry however except for the diving. The divers, three from Iowa, and two from Minnesota, were beautiful physical specimens. That goes especially for the two Iowa divers, Vargon and B----i (I can’t spell it as its Polish or something). [Biedrzycki — thank you Google!] Both of them are not too tall but they are certainly well-muscled. Vargon has a chest that looks like something like barrel. Sometimes I think it would be a lot of fun to try to draw an athlete like that. It must take a great deal of ability to make his muscular development seem real. Someday if I get around to it, maybe I’ll try it. Just now however, I don’t seem to have much time for such things.

Thank you, daddy and Vincent for the letters. Incidentally, Vincent when you said “I am writing you because of mama’s prevalence etc etc” you caused all the dead English teachers to turn over in their graves. “Prevalence” is just not used that way.

If any of the family have any bright ideas on how I am going to get all my stuff moved on the $1.00 which the university is going to allow each evacuated Quad. resident, please let me know.

By the way, when did the additions to the Strand cow family occur which Vincent mentions in his letter?

What happens when you don’t get more than seven hours of sleep per night? Answer: you get sleepy.

With love

C.P.