Bringing Piano Topside for Religious Services

Lt. (j.g.) Gilbert Steingart

          U.S.S. Ocelot, F.P.O. San Francisco
           Saturday 25 November 1944, 9:14 PM

Dearest Eleanor,

          Hello darling, here I am again.  No mail again today which makes it eight days since my last letter.  I learned today that a ship heading out this way carrying mail burned and that probably is the reason.  You see when the load gets heavy even air mail travels via ship and the load out here is terrific.  Hope none of my packages were on it.

          Well today was another routine day.  I worked all morning and took care of my welfare duties this afternoon.  The chaplain came over to arrange for the services and I'm getting the carpenters to build a pulpit and the engineers to rig up a P.A. (Public Address) system for him.  Then we are bringing our piano topside and we'll have service with hymns and even an accompaniment.  I didn't know how much this meant to the men until I heard and saw the reaction when services were announced.  I haven't done anything about the community sings that I had planned but I'm going to go to work on it tomorrow.  I'm planning to make it a nightly affair about half an hour before the movies.  Because we can't show too much light on deck I'm going to make some slides with words of songs on it and project them on the screen.  We have several musicians on board so we should have a lot of fun singing.

          That's all that is new.  Sweet, do you remember the day we went to get our marriage license and met Ben Weinstein?  Weren't we a couple of happy kids then?  And when I get back we'll go on our second honeymoon and be a couple of kids again.  Is it a date?  Okey, dokey dear, I knew you'd say yes.

          And that is thirty for tonight.  Good night honey, I'll see you in my dreams.

Loving you always,

Gil

P.S. The movie tonight was so old and so lousy I forgot to mention it.  Title: "Gambler's Choice" with who cares.

 

.