Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 175, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 August 1918 — LLOYD JOHNSON WRITES TO HIS PARENTS [ARTICLE]

LLOYD JOHNSON WRITES TO HIS PARENTS

Killingholme, July 6, 1918. Dear Mother and Father and All: 1 have my work all done so I am going to take a few minutes to write a few lines. We are pretty well settled down now. I have my clothes all washed and straightened .up again. Our travels are over for a while. I saw quite a bit of England and some of the states, before I got settled. I take in Uli the sights I can. I never expected to see this country, but now that I am here I am going to try. and make the best of it. Pop, would like to gel a look at one of their engines over here. ’They are not much like our big locomotives. They have the cylinders under the boiler between the drive wheels and have no pilot of any sort on the front end. It makes them look like the front end had been shot off. The drive wheels have a fender over them something like an auto. They sure look queer, but they have quite a bit of speed.

Instead of having automatic couplers, they have a chain with three large links on one car and a hook on the other. When they couple up a train a fellow goes along and puts them on the hooks. Some of the cars have airbrakes and some just have a lever on the side that works on the same principle as a wagon brake, t Their coaches open on the side and are divided into small compartments largo enough to accommodate eight people. The seats are crossways of the car and have a door for each compartment. Their box cars are about fifteen feet long. A string of them looks funny going along the road. Their road-ibed is fine and they have a better system of laying rails than we do, I think. The Fourth of Jully was observec in several places in England and also in Fiance. We had a little celebration here. We had some field events, boxing matches and, of course, to make an ■American doings complete, we hac a ball game, a team of sailors from this station-and a soldier team played. It was a good game, the soldiers winning by a two to one score. The Americans competed with the British in the field events. The Americans got most of the points. The British won some of the dashes, ibut the Americans won the mile relay, also the broad and high jump. An American soldier broad jumped nineteen feet and three inches. The funniest thing of the whole affair was a cup fight. They took six men and blind folded them, put a boxing glove on one hand and a cup in the other and put them all in the boxing ring. They started to knock each other out. The man that stood up after all the others were knocked out got the prize. The way they located each other was by tapping on the floor with their cups. Whenever they thought they were close enough to any one to smash them one, they would swing. Sometimes they would get a fellow and sometimes there would be no one hear. They sure looked funny going around tapping with their cups and swinging. The crowd just roared while that was going on. The English don’t understand our ball games very well, but they are interested in them. They go quite excited the other day. I heard one say that, it wouldn’t be long till they would be playing ball all oyer England. You know cricket is their great game. Of course the war is on and something had to be done, but all the boys that could be spared got to see the events. I had agood job so . got to see all of them. I am planning to have tome work done on my teeth as soon as the dentist gets his instruments and gets ready for business. I drew some dungeres the other day so I don’t have to work in my blues any more. I don’t think I will have to get any quite a while unless it is shoes. How are Bill and Sis? Where did they go the Fourth? Next I want to know how mother and the turkeys are getting along? Hope you have good luck with them for sometimes the navy has turkey for Christmas dinner. Tell Pop he might stick in a line or two in the next letter about the crops. I am interested considerable in the oats crop, because oatmeal is one of our standbys. Well I can’t -think of any more this time. One of the boys said he would be writing all the time if he could write this much. It is hard to write when there is so much you can’t say, but I think I have kept within the limits. Write when you can. Your son and brother. LLOYD JOHNSON, Q. M. A., U. S. Air Station, Killingholme, care Postmaster, N. Y. .