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Nile Kinnick correspondence, January-May 1942
1942-01-03: Front
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Saturday Afternoon January 3, 1942 Dear SB: Your last letter, describing your flying experiences to date, lead me to believe that you are getting all that I felt you would and all that I should myself love to have. Boy, how I should like be right there with you. It gave a lift just to hear you describe it. Trust that you won't be forgetting anything among the thousand points what a pilot must remember. The boy who fell out must have been surprised for a minute. Bob probably arrived before my last letter altho it was mailed the day before he left. He will have given you the last minute news as he was here briefly the evening before his departure. This storm was really in the classification of a blizzard, and must have been worse in the Des Moines area. The radio at DM reported 24" of snow there and on Thursday night advised everyone to stay in, even soldiers who happened to be on the move. We haven't had a DM paper for the past two days and doubtless you have had none. This morning's openeing temperature was 4 above, then it sank to about 5 below, and now stands just above zero. A cold wave in Western Nebraska took the mercury down to 28 below at Scottsbluff, so I heard. Possibly you find KC on the fringe of the frigid belt. Snow here was about 9" I understand. Main streets are pretty well cleaned but other offer considerable hazard to the casual motorist. Ben is preparing to catch the 8 o'clock rattler for Ames in order to have breakfast with the Pres. in the morning. Last night he closed the home season with a little fireside party here, twosomeing with a friend from CB. It is too great a strain on the imagination to have a fireside party without a fire, and it happened that we had used the last of the poplar that I cut out of the back yard. So Benny phoned around and finally located some slab wood at a dispensary of such commodities over on 30th. "Oak, hickory and ash", the lady said. So Ben and George sallied forth just at dark last eve. There was much hurrying and scurrying as Ben wanted to make his appointment and George was headed for a basketball game down town between Omaha and Loyola, and he had to be at the City Aud by 7:15 to meet Pap Ross, or he might not get in free. Well, the boys rustled all the slabs they could get in the rear end of the car, put it in the basement and mother agreed to have me build the fire for Ben just be fore we, the old folks, crept off to bed ahead of the firesiders. I went down to look over the oak, hickory and ash, to find it all to be prime cottonwood covered with snow and ice. Certainly not the romantic kind of wood the Wilbur and Pode used to layout for us. However I figured I had better try it see if it would burn. It took hold nicely, and then I feared that if I kept up the fire there might not be enough left for the main event. But it was alright and served the purpose well enough. There was one interruption when George hove in about midnight. Other than that the deponent sayeth not. We are sending a file as you requested, together with some writing paper and envelopes which I hope will meet with approval. Do you remember the magazine that Ben had at Christmas time I believe, "Aviation "Flying and Popular Aviation" for January? It is devoted entirely to Navy flying and has a most interesting article on the Pensacola Base. Maybe Bob obtained a copy before he came down. Keep 'Em Flying Pop
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Saturday Afternoon January 3, 1942 Dear SB: Your last letter, describing your flying experiences to date, lead me to believe that you are getting all that I felt you would and all that I should myself love to have. Boy, how I should like be right there with you. It gave a lift just to hear you describe it. Trust that you won't be forgetting anything among the thousand points what a pilot must remember. The boy who fell out must have been surprised for a minute. Bob probably arrived before my last letter altho it was mailed the day before he left. He will have given you the last minute news as he was here briefly the evening before his departure. This storm was really in the classification of a blizzard, and must have been worse in the Des Moines area. The radio at DM reported 24" of snow there and on Thursday night advised everyone to stay in, even soldiers who happened to be on the move. We haven't had a DM paper for the past two days and doubtless you have had none. This morning's openeing temperature was 4 above, then it sank to about 5 below, and now stands just above zero. A cold wave in Western Nebraska took the mercury down to 28 below at Scottsbluff, so I heard. Possibly you find KC on the fringe of the frigid belt. Snow here was about 9" I understand. Main streets are pretty well cleaned but other offer considerable hazard to the casual motorist. Ben is preparing to catch the 8 o'clock rattler for Ames in order to have breakfast with the Pres. in the morning. Last night he closed the home season with a little fireside party here, twosomeing with a friend from CB. It is too great a strain on the imagination to have a fireside party without a fire, and it happened that we had used the last of the poplar that I cut out of the back yard. So Benny phoned around and finally located some slab wood at a dispensary of such commodities over on 30th. "Oak, hickory and ash", the lady said. So Ben and George sallied forth just at dark last eve. There was much hurrying and scurrying as Ben wanted to make his appointment and George was headed for a basketball game down town between Omaha and Loyola, and he had to be at the City Aud by 7:15 to meet Pap Ross, or he might not get in free. Well, the boys rustled all the slabs they could get in the rear end of the car, put it in the basement and mother agreed to have me build the fire for Ben just be fore we, the old folks, crept off to bed ahead of the firesiders. I went down to look over the oak, hickory and ash, to find it all to be prime cottonwood covered with snow and ice. Certainly not the romantic kind of wood the Wilbur and Pode used to layout for us. However I figured I had better try it see if it would burn. It took hold nicely, and then I feared that if I kept up the fire there might not be enough left for the main event. But it was alright and served the purpose well enough. There was one interruption when George hove in about midnight. Other than that the deponent sayeth not. We are sending a file as you requested, together with some writing paper and envelopes which I hope will meet with approval. Do you remember the magazine that Ben had at Christmas time I believe, "Aviation "Flying and Popular Aviation" for January? It is devoted entirely to Navy flying and has a most interesting article on the Pensacola Base. Maybe Bob obtained a copy before he came down. Keep 'Em Flying Pop
Nile Kinnick Collection
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