Letter from Fred M. Kimzey, Jr. to Harper D. Hawkins, Jr. - May 4, 1958 · Greer Heritage Museum collection

Title

Letter from Fred M. Kimzey, Jr. to Harper D. Hawkins, Jr. - May 4, 1958

Accession Number

2023.58.1.36

Accession Date

April 15, 2023

Accession Creator

Samantha Mora

Depositor

Found in collection

Description

A letter from Private Fred M. Kimzey, Jr. to Harper D. Hawkins, Jr. The letter is dated May 4, 1958.

Creator

Fred M. Kimzey, Jr.

Date

May 4, 1958

Storage Location

Archives: collection case

Text

“Remember, you get chance, not choice, in the ARMY.”
May 4, 1958

Hi Don,
How are you after a nice weekend of rest? Frankly I am bored. There is nothing to do and we couldn’t go anywhere this weekend. Oh well! It’s just as well we were restricted. I’m about broke anyway.
You definitely aren’t overdoing the letter writing. I am always glad to hear from you.
I sure hope you made out alright on your history test Friday, although I know you did.
Don you asked me sometime ago about the accident during the trip up here. Sorry I forgot about it. Just a few miles outside Spartanburg the train hit a car that was stalled on the tracks. From the information I could gather, there was no one in the car. But the car must have been demolished. I didn’t even feel the train hit it. I was in next to the back car. Anyway we were stopped there for over a half an hour. When we got to Charlotte, we stopped for repairs. This took nearly an hour. Well, these delays caused me to miss my connection in D.C. I had to wait over an hour on another train and finally got to Red Bank, N.J. about 6:00 p.m. It took nearly 19 hours to get here instead of the scheduled 14 ½ hours.
You know, there’s only one thing I don’t like about this place. I have to get up at 5:15 a.m. during the week. I usually get about 6 ½ to 7 hours sleep during the night. We are on daylight saving time here so I am actually getting up at 4:15 when it is still dark. As if the darkness isn’t enough when we fall out for reville, it is usually foggy. It is about 7:15 p.m. now and is about an hour till dark, and I can hardly make outlines of buildings 200 feet away. Pretty foggy, isn’t it?
I am still looking forward to your visit next month. I certainly do hope you can make it up here. I found out about the rates at the guest house here on post. Brace yourself. – $1 (one dollar) per night per person. Is that reasonable enough? You can get your meals at the service club cafeteria at reasonable prices also. The guest house probably isn’t as luxurious as a regular hotel, but it is comfortable.
I am certainly not at loss for varied radio entertainment here. I just counted 41 stations that put a readable signal in here. I can get all the New York stations WABC, WRCA, WCBS. I can’t think of the call letters of all of them. WCKY comes in here just as good as at home.
I went over to the photo lab today but it was too crowded. I didn’t do anything. I will try to make some more pictures and send them to you during the week. As I think I said before the ocean is only seven miles from here. I got some good shots of the surf from an old dock.
This place doesn’t look like it did friday [sic] afternoon just before inspection. There are about 10 different newspapers available here on Sunday morning. There are papers thrown all over the place, no one’s bed is made up. The whole place is just a wreck it looks like a hurricane had hit it. But tomorrow morning everything will be normal again.
I’m about out of anything to say, so I will close for now. Write when you can.
Your friend
Fred

P.S. Do you know Billy Hayes’ [sic] address? I would like to write him.

Relation

Hawkins family collection