April 5, 1943 (Ray Lesch)

April 5, 1943

Dear Dorance:

This seems a very formal way of addressing you, but how are you Dip? Congrats are in order for the stripes and for the selection to O.C.S. I’m happy to see that you’ve rated both and feel sure that you’ll rate high in your class. Best of luck to you.

We are seriously thinking of replacing snow balls with golf balls – if we can get golf balls – but then that’s the least of our worries. With time as valuable as it is, we won’t find too many games forth coming. It would seem good tho – to dig that old No. 9 iron in the nice soft green turf, and can’t you just [see] me blasting out of a sand trap. I can see you now – in a pair of borrowed golf shoes – sighting down No. 10 at the University course wondering whether to hook and go out in the R.R. track, or slice and look for violets and related objects in the woods. It was a sight to behold when you finally did drive and blast straight down the fairway for 200+. Boy – I’m laying it on too thick. I wonder if someone has told Jeffers about all the rubber that I’ve neatly deposited in the lake over the second hole on the third nine at Westwood Hills. Gee that hole was a jinx.

The Campus has definitely taken on a military atmosphere due to the influx of service men from the Army and Navy. I haven’t been placed on an Army Program yet, but plan to go on one soon.

We’re planning victory gardens now in order to alleviate the expected inavailability of fresh vegetables. I’ve contracted for a plot 50ft. x 50ft. and although I haven’t done a tap of work on it yet, [I]can sometimes feel my back hurt already. It’ll be good for me tho because I’ve gotten soft over winter.

Well Dip, I’ve spread ink and haven’t said much, but I do want you to know that I think your recognition has been well deserved.

Sincerely,

Ray