Fred “Red” Felbinger shoots back at a few of his colleagues taunting him with postcards of warmer locations during a bitterly cold Chicago winter.

One newsreel practice that once existed was sending some crew members (and their families) to Florida for the winter months. Obviously Felbinger wasn’t a beneficiary of that practice judging by his highly sarcastic open letter to his fellow cameramen…

The mailman what is poundin the beat into my joint has been havin one swell time readin the postcards aimed my way — so’s I been gittin one big har! har! out of them….Seems the story goes like this!

Every one of them guys what hails from around the Middle West every time they packs up their groan boxes and shoves off for the southland or to the tropics why the minnit they arrives there and sees the palm trees and gets sunburned and drinks the real McCoy they gets down thataways, why right away they swells up with sentiment and they gets homesick.

At least it seems so. Then what happens. Well, they all goes out and buys a lot of fancy postcards of palm trees and starts shippin them up this-away. Well, this month my postman drags in cards from Florida from Roger Fenimore and Urban Santone. And the picture shows palm trees. Then along comes Bill Gerecke from Chile with a card showin a picture of people standin around in a park of palm trees. Then John Herrmann has to announce he is sunnin hisself in Mexico on a fancy picture postcard showin they’s got palm trees in Mexico, too.

Well, sir, mebbe the first disease that bites a guy the minnit he hits the tropics in the winter is to rub it into them northerners on how swell the weather is where they is gettin their breaks. Anyhow, none of them guys seems to be original. At least on the cards they sends to this department. Always, “The weather is swell, having good time, the liquor is good here, wish you was here!

Well, well! It ain’t jealous I’m a bein, but since them guys ain’t sent me their forwardin address I’m gonna use this space here to inform them about a little braggin I want to do about where I’m awinterin this season.

I’m vacationin (?) up here in a town they calls Chicago with a whole gang of tough newsreel hombres what likes their winters raw…and cold…and without sunshine what burns complexions of dainty film grinders…and where the wind howls kinder heavy enough so’s you kin trot out that swell benny from the mothballs. Youse guys down there in the tropical sunshine is snickerin as you reads this, ha ?…Go ahead, but now’s my turn. While youse is sittin there sweatin addressin them silly postcards of palm trees to us birds up north here you is missin the time of your life.

We has just had the biggest and swellest blizzard what ever stopped traffic in the Windy Burg swirl down on us. Yes, sir, real honest to goodness snow blown right down your neck, stackin up in drifts eight feet high…and cold.

Why, man, my noise ketcher Robertson had ice sickles hangin from that brand new mustache he is grown on his upper lip. And all them 666 newsnoopers was out in it makin scenes and tryin to clean the snow out of the lenses so’s they could continue to shoot.

Jackson Boulevard and Mich. Ave. was so snowed down you couldn’t see your hand afore your face. And there I sees Charlie Geis a shootin all dressed up like a German dachshund with the funny headgear he had on his bean.

And down the line I sees Ralph Saunders tryin to git the Pathe truck out of a snow drift with Tony Caputo atop yellin like a bull to be careful less he skid off with the camera.

Up in Lincoln Park motorists think they is got another statue next to the one of Gen. Grant, but it’s Jack Barnett froze to his Akeley while trying to get an exposure between blows.

Boy, oh, boy! What a storm! Best blizzard in a decade. And youse sissies down South roastin to death. Well, mebbe youse guys was drinkin good stuff, eh! har! har! The blizzard happened on Tuesday. That’s onion soup day over at Ches’s Place, and you know Ches hisself is on back of the bar every Tuesday Night in person.

So after gittin the ole face windburned by the blow we trots into Ches’s, shakes off the snow, unbuttons the galoshes and sops up a couple of nice hot bowls of onion soup…and a couple of Ches’s snifters…and hears a couple of Ches’s yarns.

Allatime while you guys aint got nothin to while away the time with down there in the tropics except sit there and address silly postcards of palm trees to us northerners what still kin take a old-fashioned winter and like it.

Say, Fenimore, Santone, Gerecke, Herrmann, if youse reads this send on your addresses and I’ll send youse a couple real view postcards of a blizzard like you used to enjoy when you was a kid.

I can’t send you any photo cards of Sloppy Jo’s bar in Havana with people a’sittin at the bar drinkin Dychery cocktails, but mebbe I kin dig one up of Ches sloppin up the bar while he is tryin to learn to mix up a “Fireman’s Shirt”!

Youse guys auto see Ches amixin them “Fireman’s Shirts.” His stum-mick shakes twice as hard as the shaker in his hand, but the drink is tol’able….

Anyhow, if youse guys tire of tropics, of palm trees, drop in on us birds up here in Chi. We got blizzards, onion soup, Ches and Fireman’s Shirts.