The Greeneville daily sun. (Greeneville, Tenn.) 1918-1920, 1918-09-20
LETTER FROM
GREENE COUNTY BOY TN
NEWPORT NEWS sHlPYARD

Newport News Va, Sept. 1s, 1918.
Well, as my other letter reached
the press instead Of the waste bas-
ket, I'll fire away again just to pass
away the time. Most of the boys /
associate with work in the day time
and I work at night. That throws
me by myself most Of the time and
| hardly know what to do with my
self after / get through sleeping. I
go to work at 5 p. m. and get off at
4 a. m. and by 4:1O I'm in bed. I
room in the barracks just at the main
gate.
have it on the other boys little.
though. We only work five nights
Of the week; have nothing to do from
Friday night until Monday night.
Still we make more hours than the
day shift, but / get kinder lonesome
through the day. Sometimes | sit
around and write or 60 down to the
field where the soldiers drill. | like
to watch the cavalry better than any,
for / always liked horse and some
of them are so pretty and sensible
they soon get on to the drilling and
seem to take such a delight in itN
They had a pole up about four or
five feet high and the horses would
jump over it, but they have done
away with it now. We get to see all
kinds of training. And the streets
are full of all nationalities magma
BILE. A bunch Of Arabs were the
funniest looking set / have ever run
across. They were dressed so queer.
Last Sunday was one Of the gloomiest
days / think / have ever seen. 1t
rained all day. We all gathered up
and did little of everything to pass
the time away, but another of our
band was absent, Ovid Huffman. He
was called away for military service.
We missed him, but hope to see him
back here soon, and believe that he
will be sent back. A crowd of us
boys are planning to go to Virginia
Beach and Cape Henry next Sunday,
namely, Jake Downey, Campbell
Grant, Carl Alexander, Ray Arm
strong, Wilbur Thomson, Tom JEFF
freys, Guy Murray and Grover
Quinn, from near Mohawk, and my
self. Most of them have never been
there. 1t is fine place to go. You
can see all of the Atlantic your eyes
can look at (and then not see quite
all of it). | was over there last
month one Sunday when there was
some large waves coming in. When
they get near the shore they would
break and Of all the noise they sure
did make it! I'm sure some of them
were IL to IA feet high sometimes.
When the ocean is rough they can be
seen "a feet high and up. There are
most all kinds of amusements there
At Cape Henry there's nothing much
to be seen except the lighthouses and
sand hills. Some ofthe sand hills
are over two miles to thetop. Of
course, not two mics high, but
distance of two miles from the rail-
way to the top. I've never been up
there, but Pm told by people that
have been that you get some tired
before you get there. The sand is
sole and it wears you out. 1t seems
like you step one foot and go back
two like the boy who was trying to
figure how long or now many jumps
it would take the cat to get out Of
the well if he jumped two feet and
fell back three. There is some fine
farming land between Norfolk and
these places. 1t almost makes one
dream of home. Yesterday was Fri
day and the 18th; so many think
that's SO unlucky, but it was pay
day just the same, and this morning
as we came out, all the way from
the main Office to the gate it looked
like it had come snow where peo-
pie had tore their pay envelopes open,
but it was unlucky for one of the
men who works with me in the gall
vanizing shop. They were galvan-
izing some castings and one of them
had not got thoroughly dry and as
it was lowered into the metal it pop
ped and looked as though it took dead
aim at him. He was at least thirty
feet from it running, but it got him
just the same. Burned his foot badly.
l went with him to the dispensary