The Stitch

Quantico, VA
August 10, 1942

Dear girls, darling girls,

You have really been wonderful to me – writing so often that I always get a letter at every mail call – the envy of the squad – and such swell letters. Light, gay, and funny. The best ones you have ever written, Mother, and yours are as good or better than ever, Gretchen.

I hope you all haven’t been worried, but honest to John, I haven’t had a minute. I have never worked so hard and long as I have this last week. Really, you have no conception – I didn’t – of how much one can do. Every minute of the day, and the day is 24 hours long.

They turned the screws on this last week, and it will be worse next – then gradually easier after that, so I’m told. And worst of all I haven’t been at full functioning power so far – when the last week’s shots wore off I got a slight case of dysentery and I had a continuous stomach ache for three days – then the shots again, and now everyone in my bay has a cold and a sore throat, and I think I’m getting that too.

Also I got into trouble last week – while marching, I brushed off a mosquito that was biting Hell out of my ear, and the Sarge ordered me to write out the position of a soldier at attention (125 words) 100 times and hand it in the next morning. Figure out this total – and I am a slow writer anyway – I sat up all night, of course, under a dim red light in the john – just made it, so didn’t have a chance to clean my rifle; so with two thirds of the rest of the platoon I had to write out the care and cleaning of the rifle – taking two and one half hours. Then, because nobody in our platoon could roll a heavy marching order for the first time in one half hour, we rolled them and marched with them all Saturday afternoon, and turn in two diagrams of it tomorrow. We’ve got the toughest Sarge in the company, and he boasts that he’s bounced more men out of this class than any other man in the outfit. One’s gone, two more are going next week; and Stock, the Yale boy, has been canned already.

I haven’t had any warning yet, but he’s got his eye on me on account of the attention thing. He liked it, though, that I sat up to do it. And I have been made squad leader for the weekend, though that doesn’t mean too much; everybody gets it in time. I’m not in danger yet, but another boner and I will be. Believe me, it puts you on edge – I’ve been running awfully close to the wind for the last few days. I figure that if I get through the next week all right, then I won’t have too much trouble from there in.

One fifth of it is gone now, thank God. Officer’s Class is a breeze compared to this. And the climate – Lord – I have never been so hot, and it’s always this way. March for five minutes and your shirt is sodden with sweat. Five more minutes and your pants are wringing wet. I have been perspiring so heavily that believe it or not, it runs down my legs and into my shoes so much that it squishes.

I’ve got to go now – study – we had three exams last week and six next. Tomorrow we throw hand grenades for four hours. And daddy was right – that bayonette practice is the worst of all – God!

All love,
Phil

***

Quantico, VA
September, 1942

Dear girls,

Well, your son and brother is an officer now – meet Lieutenant Wood of the U. S. Marine Corps! Gosh it sounds good – and everything is wonderful so far. All the quarters and so forth, the food – everything more comfortable, roomier, and more luxurious. And you have no idea how much better it makes one feel, being treated like a gentleman instead of a dog – being served, saluted, and respected. The uniforms are swell looking and feel wonderful. And cost like Hell. Honestly folks, you never saw so many charges and supercharges, extra bits of equipment that you have to get, and aside from my one luxury of a Sam Browne belt, I’ve gotten the smallest amount. I don’t know yet, but I think I’m going to spend about 350 dollars before I’m through.

A few more words Tuesday A.M.

Last night – every night – we have a compulsory study hall. And now I’ll be able to get more letters off to you all. Last night a couple of the fellows – I mean Lieutenants – and myself went over to the senior officer’s club – we can go to that and to the bachelor’s officer’s club, and believe me, it is wonderful. The Union League Club has only a slight edge on it. Very comfortable, and the best Scotch and soda on the market for a quarter, Tom Collinses for 20 cents – walnut paneled reading rooms with easy chairs. I can see that many of my leisure hours, and there will be a few more of them now, will be spent in those delightful surroundings.

I went to Washington over the weekend, had a wonderful time – really cut loose for 24 hours – drank a lot, but not too much – spent more money than I should have, but that’s healthy once in a while, too. We tooted all over the town. Got in at five and slept till almost one. It felt really wonderful to relax. People in general weren’t very impressed with a second Lt. In the Marine Corps. They see plenty of them around here, but we had a good time anyway.

Wednesday

Things are crowded again – I knew that the comfort, ease, etc. couldn’t last more than a day or so. We are at these desks ten hours a day every day now, and after the building up period we’ve been having, you get awfully restless and pent up. But we are learning a Hell of a lot. Everything from Naval Law to map reading.

Love
Phil

As many know, I collect old letters as a hobby. I arrange them by date. I read them over and over. Sometimes I post them to my journal. My goal is to return them to the rightful owners (descendants), if I am able to locate any. I've done some searching for relatives, but I've come up short in most cases.

I have decided that I will add a page to my website to announce "The Letter Project." By doing this, I hope that any descendants who may perform internet searches for the people named in my letter collection, "The Letter Project" web page will be pulled up on the search engines and they can make their claim.

If you have in your possession old letters, and would like to accomplish the same goal as I am attempting, please email me with a list of names from your letters and I will post them on "The Letter Project" page, with your contact information where descendants may reach you, either by email or by telephone - whichever you prefer.

Another offshoot of this project is to encourage people to write letters instead of sending all communication via email. I am going to set up a program to connect people who wish to have a pen pal. If you'd like to participate, you can read all of the details here. As I've mentioned before, I honestly feel that letter writing has become a dying art and that we're losing a very important aspect of recorded history with the convenience of email. Don't get me wrong - I love technology and what it has done for my life and career - but I also enjoy history and want to do my part to contribute.

For those who wish to help preserve history through letter writing, I'll connect you with another like-minded individual, and the two of you can write real paper letters and send them, with pictures and postcards through the good old USPS to one another. The only requirement is that you preserve the letters you receive so that someday you can pass them on to the descendants of the person who is writing to you, thus preserving a tiny slice of recorded history.

I'm also going to give this a try, and I've found another willing participant, Geoff Roecker, a theatre student at Vassar and Civil War reenactor, who seems to like the idea of the project too. In fact, Geoff has a collection of letters written by one of his relatives, and took the time to transcribe over 50 pages of these letters from Phil Wood to his mother and his sister, from 1941-1944. Geoff has generously granted me permission to post these letters here in my own journal for you all to enjoy - and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I have.

Without further ado, here are the first two letters of the series from Phil Wood to his mother and sister, Gretchen.

Yale Law School

Sunday Dec. 7, 1941

Dear Mother,

It’s here at last – all our vague hopes of my being able to stay out are gone; I feel sure I will be called by summer, though not before the end of the semester, certainly. I still refuse to volunteer, though there are some boys here who are going to.

It’s hard on you girls, I know; the delay in my education can do none of us any good. I wish I could be there just to talk it over with you. Needless to say, it leaves me very low – I had been hoping against hope that it would never come; it may well mean the end of much of the world that we knew. But there’s nothing we can do about it now.

My love to you both,

Phil

***

Quantico, VA

July, 1942

Dear folks,

All safe and happy so far, by God! We’ve been on the go every minute – have had everything, but no physical and no shots as yet. Uniforms, haircuts – don’t even recognize myself! And a large issue of clothes, two rifles, Springfield and Garand, bayonette, hats, etc. And I’ve never had my stuff so neatly put away before in my life – every under drawer folded just so. And these Marine Sgts. are every damn thing they’re cracked up to be. I haven’t incurred their wrath yet, but several around me have, and it sure puts the fear of God into me. His first words were "Well, you dumb sons of bitches, I’m your Jesus Christ now!"

Jack Stock of Yale Law is here, and Sabini – though I haven’t seen much of either of them, and nothing from Winnie. Guess he didn’t make it somehow.

Our quarters here are just like gym lockers with double deckers set in between – fourth floor of an enormous building. I’m in an upper, damn it – damn it because the fellow under me has some nervous disorder and twitched all night. This is only [a] light frame, and it felt like a rolling sea up here. But I know that by tonight I won’t notice it. We were up at five, and by the time eight rolled around I was ready for lunch – wonderful food so far, but maybe that won’t last.

Our uniforms are khaki, quite mundane looking, but lightweight, except for the shoes! And our only fancy article – an exotic-looking tropical fibre helmet with the Marine emblem. Can’t be worn off the post.

All my love,

Phil

In the early 1990s I lost my box of memories. It was a standard cardboard box filled with photographs of friends, relatives and pets I had loved, letters from boyfriends as far back as eighth grade. I kept it stored in the basement of the house I was living in at the time, and one night I came home from work to find the basement entirely flooded and my box of memories had become flotsam, bobbing with the pulse of the sump pump.

I lost 25 years of my life in that one moment. I lost the only tangible record of my life until that point in time. What would be passed on to my children and on to their children? How would they remember me? How would they remember the people I knew, or understand the things I had done in my lifetime?

Shortly after the loss of my memory box, I purchased a digital camera and a computer. Written letters morphed into email. Pictures printed on Kodak paper were now stored in fragile hard drives - all of which suffered meltdowns of one variety or another - and all of the meltdowns resulted in further loss of my memories.

Only since the birth of my daughter have I begun to take steps to record my history and my life. And only now do I realize what a dangerous position we've put ourselves in. I save all digital images on my computer, on disks and on a remote server somewhere in cyberland, and have each image printed out on photographic paper.

Regretfully I still use email as a major method of communication. I want to change this. I want to go back to the old ways and start sending real letters, so that someday my life can be sold on eBay. At least that way someone will remember me after I'm gone and the children of my children are gone as well.

This generation of computer geniuses and professional bloggers is at risk of losing their entire lives to history. Sure, we've got census reports and records to show we existed - but what about the tangible artifacts? The tokens of life that get handed down from generation to generation, or are shipped to the eBay auction block for ephemera junkies like me to bid on and hoard like a greedy child. Letters, pictures, sketches and locks of hair - they seem to be relics from the past.

Our diaries are now blogs. And we feel secure storing these delicate tales in a booklet kept open only by the almighty dollar. Once we stop paying for the blogging time and space, our memories disappear forever. Ten years from now, after we've lost another ten years to the frailty of technology, we'll wonder "What were we thinking, trusting our lives to this method of preservation?"

I own collections of the memories of other people. I keep the faded yellow letters in velvet-wrapped boxes and I read them on nights when I'm regretting the loss of my own auctionable memorabilia. I thumb through their photographs and wonder if they knew how well they were preserving their lives by simply putting pen to paper and posting these messages through time.

We're losing these precious pieces of history. We're sending emails by the thousands every day, only to have them clicked into the oblivion of "deleted files." We shoot pictures by the thousands and with the flick of a finger we save them to folders named "Christmas 05" and a year later, after we've forgotten back-up copies, they're lost when the computer crashes during the "Christmas 06" celebration. A careless splash of champagne, a fried hard drive and in seconds of sparks and flames, a whole year is lost forever. No paper copies in albums to flip through, no memories to share snuggled around the fireplace with a glass of fancy wine.

Letter writing has become a dying, if not dead art. Our paper pictures are being lost to a digital generation. We're not real. We're leaving nothing for the future to hold in their hands. We're leaving only census reports to show for our existence. It's not enough.

This worries me greatly, and I desperately want to change this sad reality. I want our memories preserved and put down on paper for others to read about for, not just decades, but centuries. We need to start writing - but not just writing, preserving. Is there a way to do this? I think so. I think we each need to choose one or two people, then send them a letter and a photograph each week, or even one letter a month. Vividly describe the events that have unfolded since the last message. When you receive each of these treasures, tie them with a satin ribbon and keep them forever. Someday people will want to read them - and if not, you can sell them on eBay, to people like me, who will devour every word, savoring every delicious, timeless sentence, and place them in a velvet-wrapped box for the next person to enjoy.

Peace, 'til next.

Because I've got class, it's pronounced: tek-noy-dee-oh

Just like the movie LA Story when Sara Jessica Parker wants to eat at the restaurant, "L'idiot."

Pronounced: lid-ee-oh

I'm staring blankly at my television screen. It's telling me this:

Your satellite connection is shot to Hell and you are SCREWED, my friend. It's Thursday night and Survivor is scheduled to start in 2 minutes. You completely blew it last week when you somehow fried the VCR and DID NOT record Survivor for Brian. This is the ONLY THING IN THE WORLD HE HAS EVER ASKED OF YOU. Your fingers should be stitched together for being such a technologically-challenged moron. Shame. Shame.

My box of scrumptious Flavacol arrived the other day and it's every bit of movie theatre goodness I had hoped it would be. We ate it for three nights in a row and then our bodies exploded in a mass of vomit and other unspeakable disgustingness.

Was it the Flavacol or was it bad shrimp?

I'll let you tomorrow. We've returned to the evening Flavacol ritual, and tonight will be the second "third night." So far, so good.

And it

Really.

Is.

Good.

::::dies of Flavacol deliciousness::::

Creative Ironing 101
as taught by the male members of my family, who think "Extreme Ironing" is cool.


CURL-RONING - use wife's curling iron to press the buttonhole area of your dress shirt. Cover the rest of the wrinkled shirt with a jacket.

PAD-N-GO - In the morning, slip your shirt between two damp towels and two heating pads. Leave in place all day. Magically irons while you play video games.

SHOWER-ONING - hang shirt in the shower while you clean up. (This technique is more "creative steaming" than "creative ironing.")

DRYERNING - throw wrinkled article of clothing in the clothes dryer with a wet towel. Wrinkles are apparently forced out by repeated slapping with a wet towel. I can't help but wonder if this method would work on my crow's feet.

For Christmas and her birthday, Elizabeth was the lucky recipient of five thousand of the loudest, screamiest, not-shut-offiest toys on earth. Or at least it SEEMS like it was five thousand toys. I'm told this is payback for every loud, screamy, no-volume-button toy I ever gifted to my nieces and nephews. I'm constantly being reminded of the year of JAKE THE SNAKE, a plastic slithering and lunging viper with fangs who was powered via remote control on happy, holy Christmas day in the hands of a vengeful 6-year old boy.

I was rudely awakened at 4 am the other day to the sound of "HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON! HI, I'M EDISON!"

He had been casually packed in the toybox and when the cat walked across his head, she shifted him so that Screamy Dog Baby could constantly press Edison's GO button and never let go.

I stumbled into the living room and kicked Edison's head into the wall.

Edison does a lot of tricks. He's got 26 feet to match up with every letter of the alphabet and just about as many switches, allowing him to perform a variety of phonetic tasks. He can tell you the color of the foot you're pressing, he can sing a song that starts with the letter of the foot you're pressing, he can tell you the letter stenciled on the foot you're pressing and he can phonetically sound the letter on the foot you're pressing.

Elizabeth had retired for the evening a few nights ago. I was washing dishes in the kitchen and Brian was in the living room doing Brian-ish things, which can range from dirt baking to metal sculpting. I was washing the last of the dinner goo out of the sink when I heard the following phonetic lineup sounding out loud and proud from the general Brian vicinity:

"buh-uh-ttt"

"mmm-o-rrrrrr-o-nnnnnn"

"duh-iiii-nnnnn-k"

"f-aaaaaaaa-rrrrrrrrr-t"

"aaaaaa- HAHAHA, that tickles! - ssssssssssss"

"p-rrrrrrrrrrr-iiiiiiiiiiii- HAHAHA, that tickles!" -kkkkkkkkkk"

"fffffff-uuuuuuuu- HAHAHA, that tickles! - kkkkkkk"

And I realized that my darling husband was using Elizabeth's toy to sound out dirty swear words. Apparently the Edison Caterpillar Company employees had their thinking caps on when they developed this toy. They knew that deviants like Brian would try to make him say naughty words, so they installed a safety feature to break up the word and say ""HAHAHA, that tickles!" before they finished any type of swear.

I swung my head around the corner and gave the "wife glare." he looked up and smiled at me, caught.

"I'm just testing it. You know. To make sure she won't learn any of these words. . . "

What does Heather do to amuse herself while Brian is participating in late-night community theatre projects?

Why, I shop on eBay for "bowels," of course. You'd be utterly amazed at how many people are trying to sell their bowels on eBay.

Right now there are several auctions for bowels. You can buy any of the following bowels for a really affordable price:

Fused glass bowels (OUCH!)
Coca-Cola Bowels
Yellow Pear Bowels
Bowels imported from Kenya
and my personal favorite:
"Brown Drip" Bowels

Last I heard, selling body parts on eBay was illegal. But I guess if you disguise your bowels with gimmicky advertising, you might get away with it.

Peace 'til next

I'm back from fabric shopping and a couple pounds heavier with pretty pink chiffon-y pleated sweetness for Miss Elizabeth's curtains.

I shop for fabric locally on a weekly basis at two fabric stores, and I've been shopping at both stores for over four years.

The first of my two local fabric stores is the GREATEST FABRIC STORE ON EARTH. As soon as I walk up to the cutting counter, the women greet me by name and we talk about babies, husbands and sewing. They cut my fabric quickly, fold it neatly, print my ticket and I'm on my way in a matter of minutes.

The second of the local fabric stores, which happens to be a nationwide chain, has employees which cause me much vexation. I visit their store every week and I recognize the same cutters, yet, until recently, have never recognized me in the four years I've shopped with them.

For those in "the fabric know," this is the same store where the employees ask EVERY TIME YOU HAVE FABRIC CUT,

"What are you making?"

The first ten dozen times I was in the store I explained that I made Renaissance gowns for a living. They never remembered me, and they asked over and over and over again, "What are you making?"

My friend Amber told me that her branch of this chain of stores asks the same question every time she shops with them, and they never remembered her either. Now she plays with them.

Buying: 26 yards of pink taffeta
cutter asks: What are you making?
Amber: Funeral shrouds.

So, the last time I shopped with them I played too.

Buying: 18 yards of bright red glitter organza
cutter asks: What are you making?
Me: Winnebago covers.

They remember me now.

This store always has a fairly long line of people waiting to have their fabric cut, so they installed a paper number machine. You pull a ticket as you approach the counter and they have a lit sign displaying their current customer number. Paper numbers suck, but at least they're eliminating line budgers. Line budgers suck worse than paper numbers.

The cutters are slow. Unbearably slow. Painfully, unspeakably, I-would-rather-slice-papercuts-across-the-length-of-my-tongue-than-wait-in-this-line slow. It wouldn't be so intolerable if it was an affliction over which they had no control - but these cutters are DELIBERATELY slow.

I have seen them with a line of 10 or more customers STOP cutting fabric to take 5 minutes to re-roll all the bolts up in tidy fabric bundles, walk over, put them back on the shelves, and then stop to pick fingernail lint before announcing the next number. (I can't help but wonder why they don't re-roll the fabric and put it away when there aren't people waiting in line)

Today there were eight people waiting in line. An elderly gentleman was being waited on with 5 neatly rolled remnants. The gal counted them up, rolled out some yardage, cut if for him and was preparing to hand him his slip:

"Do you have a basket?"
"No. I don't need one. Thank you."
"Right over there (points with her scissors) are some baskets. You need one."
"No, really I don't. I carried these over without one. I don't need one now."
"Right over there- (points again with her scissors) hand me one."
"There aren't any."

The woman stopped cutting, speaking, breathing. She placed her scissors on the cutting table and looked directly past the long line of customers waiting for her next move, and she did the unspeakable.

With a line of eight customers waiting to have their fabric cut, she sauntered out from behind the counter, right past the lot of us, proceeded all the way to the front of the store, STOPPED TO CHAT WITH THE CASHIER, grabbed a half dozen baskets, meandered back through the line of annoyed numbered ticket holders, shot the baskets to the floor, did a' mosey on back around the counter and told the man, "Hand me one of those baskets."

The man, obviously stunned, stared at her for one brief moment in utter disbelief, handed her a basket. She took the remnants, put them in the basket, handed him his ticket, completed a fingernail lint pick and called the next number.

It's during these moments that in my mind I pen my best letters of complaint.

Now, I know you're going to tell me that I'm simply too rushed and hurried and I should slow down to savor these moments of leisure - and you're right. I could be spending the time counting fabric bolts on the wall, or flipping through KNIT THIS magazine.

But I'm a purposeful shopper. I don't like wandering through store aisles, fingering fabrics and looking for diaphanous qualities. I'm a list-driven woman. I follow my lists to the letter. I know where every product is on the shelf before I even enter the store. I plot my course, I walk the least number of steps possible, cut, bag and DRIVE HOME.

I've never actually written a complaint letter though. Why would I when I can just come here and bitch about it on the internet?

Peace, 'til next

I think we've got this movable type gig mastered. Sort of. There are still a few glitches - for example, several pages are not aligning properly, but I think that's actually my fault. Later today I will try a few things to get it fixed and if I can't repair it, I'll throw my computer out the window and hand the project over to the Briguy.

Your task, dear friends, is to find as many glitches in the blog section as possible. Email me with your findings and I will add them to my list of "crap to fix."

Some of the new features of this new blogging format include a SEARCH box. If you want to search for, oh, say, " Cwrapping Paper " you'll get this

We also have a MUCH neater archived section, and fun new categories. When you're bored, browse through them all and send me notes on how to make it better.

Eventually we WILL open the comments section so that you can post your own opinions. People who misbehave will be fed to Skye. For now, we just want to make sure everything ELSE is working correctly. Once it is, we'll open the comments section to the public.

Does anyone know what a TRACKBACK is? We've got the option of having them, but I want to make sure it's not going to give me a bad case of the grippers or worse.

Yeah, and we have this thing that says "Subscribe to this blog's feed." But I don't know if that means we have to leave a bucket of oats out for you, or if it means something else. Elighten me if you have the answers.

As always, we welcome suggestions on ways to improve the site and make it more user friendly. We've just added a fabulous new custom estimate form to our site. And of course, there's the "what's new" section too, where we've just added all sorts of footwear.

I'm off to do some fabric shopping. Because two rooms filled to the rafters are simply not enough.

Peace 'til next

"I've found it!"

"What? The million dollars I lost yesterday?"

"No. Something much more important!"

"Well? What is it?"

"The secret ingredient in movie theater popcorn! It's something called Flavacol."

"Hmmmm. Flavacol? That sounds a little chemically-inspired, don't you think?"

"Yeah, probably. But It's the secret ingredient! The SECRET INGREDIENT! And I'm buying 35 ounces of it!"

"How much of it will cause cancer in lab rats?"

"Ummm. Probably 35 ounces. "

At least he'll be able to cash in on that million dollar bank account I opened yesterday.

I woke up this morning and decided that spaghetti and meatballs would be the Special on the Piper dinner menu for tonight. I pulled out a loaf of frozen bread dough and a package of ground beef for meatballs.

When I started mixing the balls, I realized we had run out of eggs. I hurriedly called Brian and begged him to bring home a dozen or so, in between smashing little peach chunks for E-Beth's lunch. The meatball mixture was still slightly frozen, so I set the bowl on the stove and planned to add the eggs when Brian arrived.

Take it from me. There's nothing in the world that will piss you off more than turning the corner and catching your cat licking the top layer of your partially defrosted balls.

Nothing.

Peace, til next.