Why the Minneapolis Star Tribune chose to inflict this story on us today is beyond me.
My mom who was also 18 in 1942 was spitting tacks all day over this. She moved up to "the cities" in the summer of '42 and was working in an office. She was most upset over what Poppy had to say about the girls in Minneapolis back then. She was particularily worried because she was a princess in that summer's Aquatennial celebration and they had had Navy cadets escort the princesses during various activities and she was afraid she might have had some contact with the "old jerk". After I read the article, I was able to comfort her with the news that Poppy was not here in the summer. Actually, by the time he hit town, Mom had gone out to L.A. to live with her aunt and was working in Studio city. She was most relieved, but still peeved about his attitude.
http://www.startribune.com/stories/468/4237110.html<SNIP>
MINNEAPOLIS - George H.W. Bush was 18 when he spent Thanksgiving Day in Minnesota and could not know then that he would become the 41st president of the United States. But the Navy cadet at Wold-Chamberlain Field in Minneapolis wrote dozens of letters home that reveal his enthusiasm for flying, his growing appreciation of his family's privileges and other values that re-emerged later in his career.
His letters, mostly to his mother, Dorothy, describe not only Minnesota's below-zero weather but his worries about money, his fear of washing out of training and a close call during a night exercise. They also describe visits to well-to-do Twin Cities-area households such as the Pillsburys' and his appreciation for his own family, especially during a Thanksgiving far from home.
One candid letter to his mother dealt with premarital sex.
"I would hate to find that my wife had known some other man, and it seems to me only fair to her that she be able to expect the same standards from me," Bush wrote. "Most fellows here - true, some are engaged and some believe as I do - but most fellows take sex - as much as they can get.
"This town (Minneapolis) in particular seems full of girls (working in offices etc), rather attractive girls at that, who after a couple of drinks would just as soon go to bed with some cadet. They are partly uniform-conscious, I suppose, but the thing is they, as well as the cadets, have been brought up differently. They believe in satisfying any sexual urge by contact with men. They all say 'I'm not that type of girl, but alright - just for you!' Every single girl says this."
He closed: "To think all this was brought on by your asking me what I thought about kissing." He signed it with his family nickname, "Pop," to which he added: "professor of 'sexology' PH.D."
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