Edgar Rice Burroughs
Tarzana, California
1298 Kapiolani
Boulevard
Honolulu 42 Hawaii
October 13, 1944
Dear Jack:
For no particular reason, I take two of my fingers in hand to
write you.
The front page news of today is that one hundred and eleven
(111) years ago your Grandfather Burroughs was born in Warren,
Massachusetts, October 13 1833. He died thirteen days
before
you were born.
I just dug out a genealogical datum that may interest you:
The
average age at death of eighteen of your ancestors (and mine)
was
eighty-one years. The youngest died at sixty-nine, the
oldest
at ninety-three. These were the only ancestors the dates
of
whose births and deaths I have.
Hulbert said he might be in yesterday, but as he didn't show
up
by 4:15 P.M., I gave him up and accepted an invitation to a
cock-
tail party being given by Lt. Col. Wolfe, Flight Surgeon of
the
7th Bomber Command, with whom I became very well acquainted
on
Tarawa and Kwajalein. The Colonel's party ended up at
a party
being given by Army Flight Nurses at Hickam Field, where the
Col-
onel is temporarily quartered on his way back to the front.
It
was quite some party. I really didn't see much of it,
as I spent
most of the evening writing my name on things, principally Short
Snorter bills. My Short Snorter collection has now grown, through
no effort on my part, to a length of 4 ft. 4 1/2 inches.
But if I
didn't see much of the party, I drank quite a lot of it.
The
girls must have been saving up their liquor rations for quite
some time.
I spent the night at the Colonel's quarters and got back to the
hotel for breakfast. It is no fun driving between Hickam
and
Honolulu at night; so when I go out there, I usually stay all
night.
Am enclosing a clipping that amused me. I think it may amuse
you,
also.
Phil Bird phoned to say tha t he is calling for me at 1:30 and
that we are going over to the other side of the Island.
I don't
know why nor where, and I didn't ask. Phil is a captain
on the
staff of my very good friend Colonel Kendall J. Fielder, A.C.
of
S., G-2, USAFPOA. I hope that some day you can meet both
of
them.
Now I gotta go back to the hotel and get into my uniform.
I only
wear it when I'm likely to go onto a military reservation; be-
cause I am so goddam old that everybody takes me either for
God
or a major general and salutes me. It is rabarrassing.
OB