Cpl Roman F. Klick 36620923
Co "A", 353rd Engr Regt
A.P.O. #502, c/o Postmaster
San Francisco, California
1 October 1943

Dear Aunty Clara,

Remember those days when I could sit for hours and sometimes wander about for days with a single daydream in my mind? Those days when I was going to open up a waffle shop, or a roller rink, or a bowling alley? My imagination would fly from the fantastic to the yet more ludicrous in less time than it takes to tell about. Somehow, being in the Army has killed part of that daydreaming. Being continually on the go without much time to sit for hours and hours just wondering and thinking is a serious handicap for a daydreamer. Now all I have a chance to do is to think of the ideas and then pigeon hole them for the duration or for some future moments when it will be more practical to elaborate on them.

One of the things I know that I definitely want to do after this war is over is to have a hobby working around my own woodshop. I want to make small things for the house which will not look amateurish but will be worth showing off. Like Marty can make all the furniture in his house and be proud of it, I too want to be able to make gadgets and conveniences which will not only be useful and give the house that personal touch but which will provide me many hours of entertainment and enjoyment in the making process. Now back to civilian life I might have thought of the same idea and perhaps toyed with it for several days or weeks, ending up with elaborate plans on just how I could go about it, what I should do to achieve my ends, how much the financial side of the venture would cost all replete with sketches, facts and figures. Here in the Army I have the idea and that is all there is to it.

Mrs Reed always used to say that boys who daydream never grow up to do anything and that I should stop daydreaming. I still think that was one of the best things I ever did. Whether or not those daydreams ever came true of not was really immaterial most of the times. I found both entertainment and amusement in the mere act of planning the dream out in such detail and then having consultations (one-sided) with you over the new project.

Many of them were good ideas such as the waffle shop and the roller rink and even that pick up and deliver services business --- all of which we have seen develop into prosperous concerns right under our very noses mainly because I never had the cash to put those bigger plans into operation. Then there were those fantastic flights in which I dreamed of building a house by myself or digging a home in the ground or erecting a cheap garage like structure on the empty lot. They may have sounded like impossible but here on the Island living in tents they have partly come true.

I've toyed with the idea of having a movie machine and taking pictures; especially after seeing Frank Thorstein with his set up and Bob Richert talking and showing films with his own camera and projector. Now that I have had practical experience with both film and the projector, I can store that item away as another one of my post-war plans which will probably materialize into another hobby.

There is a difference between those hobbies and those I used to dream of. They were just dreams in which I wished I could do those things. These are not dreams but plans to continue to utilize skills or aptitudes discovered while in the Army.

I'd like to spend a few weeks designing just how I will fix up my studio, projection booth, screen, and all the paraphernalia that goes with that business but now I realize that when the time comes from me to do it I will be able to think up something and as for right now, I have more things to do than to dream no matter how much I would like to.

Quite a few times I think of other types of entertainment I could provide myself with like a full fledged realization of a garden planned, designed and made by myself as the outcome of those early attempts in the back yard, the front sun porch garden boxes and the strawberry and iris bed on the front lawn. There are so many semi-active things like that which I know can interest me that I should never become bored with life for lack of things to do when this massacre is over.

So-long,   /s/ Roman   Roman