Waiting for a Kiss- October 1941
Hi there! Hope you're ready for the next batch of letters; I've added four for your reading pleasure today. There are some great old songs mentioned, and you can't help but get caught up in the rush of new romance. Check out the playlist if you'd like to listen to all the songs mentioned below.
Larry also alludes to a 'very important' question he hopes to ask Joy very soon!
It's also important to remember the time period context of October 1941- just two months before the attack on Pearl Harbor that would finally launch the U.S. into war in Europe and Asia. You'll see that Larry mentions an increase of activity at his airfield, and numerous radio and newspaper reports, all pointing in the same direction.
He's hoping to plan a trip back to Kentucky as soon as possible.... but the War will be changing everyone's plans very soon.
Enjoy 🙂
Oct.9, ‘41
Dearest Joy,
I wonder if you will expect this or will you think I am crazy. I am, just a bit. I get kinda “off the beam” every time I think of you which means I stay just a little bit crazy. I was thinking of you tonite (as usual) and the radio started playing “Yours” (remember?) So I just had to write you. Darling I have read your letter a hundred times and it’s sweeter every time I do. I guess when a guy like myself does fall, he goes completely off the “deep end”. Anyway I did. Incidentally and lest you forget, I love you. I’ll always love you no matter what happens. That is a promise. If there is anything you wish to ask me about anything I have done or where I have been, I want you to feel perfectly free to ask me anything you want to know about me.
Now to try to be practical for a bit, things are just as dull as ever here. The weather is very hot, 96 degrees today, and it hasn’t rained for weeks. It is a beautiful day, every day in Alabama, well, nearly every day.
They are stepping the work up around here for some reason. We are going ahead just a litter faster than we did a month ago. Possible there is no importance attached to that or maybe the “big moment” is on its way at last. I would almost welcome war news. It’s foolish but it seems necessary. The papers and radio scream about it, at every opportunity. But I didn’t mean to bore you dearest, with that. I guess I am just writing subconsciously about what is uppermost in all our minds. I guess that’s the reason we are here. I’ll never be sorry I am in the Army tho’ because it gave me the exquisite pleasure of meeting you. Fate has a strange way of accomplishing its ends, doesn’t it. This sounds as tho’ I am growing morbid? I am not really. I am nearly always cheerful, I guess I am just lonesome for you and knowing I can’t see you, just yet, everything assumes a slight indigo hue. I promise the next letter won’t be so doleful. Well I guess I should quit for this time. Bye, my Sweet
Yours, Always
Roy
“For there’s not a Colleen sweeter where the river Shannon flows” - How about that? I think the author of those words, knew something.
R
Oct. 16
Dearest Joy,
I just received your letter and so, the sun is shining, the birds are singing, and even the bark of an airplane engine sounds like music. I have been working nights this week (from 5:30pm until 11:30pm) I asked for it to sort of relieve the monotony. I will go back to working days next week however. I also enjoy the short “hops” (flights) I get during these afternoons that I am off. Indian Summer has, at last arrived and nature has started to don her most [beautiful] (to me anyway I love Autumn best of all the seasons) clothes. The trees are beginning to turn beautiful shades of red, purple, and gold. Some of them just seem to be dripping with flame as the wind blows thru them. The sun isn’t so hot now. It seems more mellow and the long golden shafts shining thru the trees in the late afternoon, make one glad to be alive. (I guess I sound sort of silly) I do enjoy this time of year tho. It’s worth waiting thru frigid winters and scorching summers for.
Here I go rambling on and on about nothing much darling I am very sorry to hear that you have [been] and still are sick. I hope you are much better by the time you receive this letter. Please take the very best care of my most precious possession won’t you? Joy I admire your frankness about the boy you were dating. However it isn’t important to me because you say you love me and that directly and indirectly solves all my problems. Everything else will fall into place like the pieces of a puzzle as their time approaches. My world may be locked or unlocked by that statement of yours. “Our Future” (I love those words) can be taken care of at the proper time.
I want you to give my best regards and deepest gratitude to your Mother and Father for their kind invitation. I shall be most happy to accept. Now we arrive at your question Joy, dearest. I am a bit uncertain about being able to answer that fully. It seemed so unreal at first, then later with such amazing conviction. Well I guess you know that everybody be they ever so haughty or humble, has a picture in their heart of their ideal, of the dream girl they desire to meet, at some time in their life and marry. When I looked at you that Sunday morning I knew that, even if I never were able to tell you, even if you couldn’t care, even if there wasn’t a chance, you were the half-real, half-dream girl that I had been hoping, some day, to meet. Every word we spoke, every act afterward, only served to convince me that I was right. There could be no other. Joy, this may sound a bit melodramatic, or like a movie, but its true every word. It seems that for every man created there is one woman also, just as God did in the beginning of the world. The world being what it is, the chance of these two people meeting is left to fate. To some it happens, to others they imagine it happens (only to learn their mistake later) and to some it never happens. We are two of the lucky ones.
Well my dear, I must quit soon and go to work. I hope I don’t sound too crazy in this letter. I’ll be there just as soon as conditions allow me. By the way, how about that new song, well it’ new here anyway, “There’s a City Called Heaven”, heard it? Hope you like it, I do. Well I must close. Take care of yourself and my heart darling, stay as sweet as you are. I’ll never stop loving you.
All my love,
Roy
Did I mention?
I love you
What? You didn’t hear?
I said I love you!
Are you saving me that kiss I didn’t get? Yours always, Roy
Oct. 23
Dearest Joy,
I am thinking of you tonite and I think such pleasant mental activity should be climaxed by a letter. Anyway it’s logical isn’t it? It is 9:15PM now and I am on duty. I am, in military language, “Charge of Quarters”. It is a 24 hour tour of duty (4.00P.M. till 4 P.M.) consisting of keeping order, answering all phone calls, taking care of all emergencies, seeing that all lights are out at Taps and making sure that everyone arises at Reveille. The last duty has a tendency to make one unpopular but all non-commissioned officers have to do it. We only have this duty once a month. A different man has it every day.
Well, judging from the press and radio we will undoubtedly get some action about the war situation too. That would please me greatly because I am becoming impatient to get it over and carry out some half-formed plans I have for the future. I say half-formed because the other half depends on you. You must help me with them before they can become complete. Everything I plan now dear, includes you. I don’t think [of] accomplishing thing alone anymore. It is always “we” or “us”. Without you now, I would have no plan, there just wouldn’t be any motive for “going on”. It is unbelievable how, in such a short time, you have become the most important part of my life. But it’s true, when I calmly and clearly analyze the situation. I find that without you there would be nothing.
I may be able to tell you something definite about coming up there, in the next few days. I’ll know by next week at the very latest. I shall try to make it the second weekend in Nov. Incidentally I had some pictures taken last Friday nite. I saw the proofs and the photographer did fairly well with what he had to work with (me). If you want one I’ll send it to you as soon as I get them. I remember you saying something in your last letter about being too forward and that I might change my opinion or lose interest. Darling I’ll never change my opinion about you, no matter what happens. And I couldn’t lose interest because I love you and you only lose interest in people who amuse or intrigue you. Never in someone you love.
Please excuse the stationery, but it is the nearest supply. I suppose I should quit before I write a book. But when I close a letter to you it is just like saying good bye and I don’t like to do that. Oh yes, Charles has made another stripe, he is a sgt. Now. I am really glad because he did deserve it. He can’t always be unlucky. I think he will be alright. It will take some time but time is the great healer. The laws of the game are harsh, for every winner, there must be a loser. It is cruel but it cannot be changed.
I am coaching our squadron football team. We have won our first game 6-0 altho we have had a few unlucky incidents in practice. We had a couple of men injured last nite (one of them was the coach). One boy had his arm injured, and I have had a dreadful limp today however neither injury was serious but we can’t play in this week’s game.
Joy, Darling I dream of the time I can hold you in my arms and kiss you as I wanted to the nite I talked to you and then left without so much as shaking hands. Sometime I shall, if God is willing and fate is kind. Until then, keep my heart, stay as sweet as you are and don’t ever stop loving me, please. All my love.
Lovingly yours
Roy
Oct. 27, ‘41
Dearest Joy,
I just received your letter and I did owe you a letter but I guess you have the last one I wrote by now. I wrote it last Friday. One of the reasons I waited a few days was that I wanted to tell you about Charles (I guess he told you tho) making Sgt. Our weather has changed, today we have had a raging windstorm since morning, been promising rain but none yet. It is much cooler though. I had a letter from back home, a couple of days ago, and they have had snow already. Darling I must see you next month. There is a real important question I must ask you. Then, depending on your answer, I have a plan in mind which will require your advice. If this thing works out right I may be gone 2 years but at the end of that time everything will be just as we want it.
I know this must sound silly and mysterious but I think it is an opportunity and by the time I see you I’ll have full information about it and I’ll tell you everything about it. Of course I realize that two years is quite a while. A lifetime to be away from you but I have nearly 20 months left in the Air Corps and this pother thing would only be 4 months longer. Oh well I’ll tell you all about it when I come to see you and we will decide. While I think of it, please excuse this stationary, some one borrowed mine and I borrowed this.
I am glad you like Poe’s works. He is my favorite American author. Have you ever read “Lenore” or “Annabelle Lee”? They aren’t very cheerful but I do like them. I like strange, weird literature and you are the only girl I ever met who also likes that type of writing.
Dear I hope with all my heart that you will feel the same when you do see me again. I know that I’ll always feel this way about you no matter what happens. If fate decides against us and we never realize our dreams, it wouldn’t change me, about you. I love you now and I will as long as I live any beyond, if that is possible. Nothing will ever change that. I know that there will never be anyone else really.
Well I must quit as I have to work this evening. I am working nites again. Bye darling.
I love you.
Your,
Roy
He is so committed SO FAST! It’s intriguing to me, as this would be a red flag to me in today’s dating scene. But it was obviously reciprocated and it worked out! What a sweet story. 🥰