Dart’s not kidding when he begins the letter by saying this has been a most eventful weekend.
After inspection, he went into town on liberty, with tickets to the play Goodnight Ladies in his pocket. First, he took a long bus ride to scope out places of interest that he wants to explore more fully at a later date. After seeing the play, which didn’t rate any kind of review in this letter, he was headed back to camp.
Church services Sunday morning were followed by another trip to ‘Frisco’s USO. He was hoping he could snare a home-cooked meal at some kind stranger’s house. When he posed his request to the hostess, she told him she had just the place for him! She said she was looking for nice young men under the age of 23 to attend a private party. He was a little wary about the party idea, but decided to go anyway.
The party included 16 sailors and 17 nice girls from a local school at the home of a middle-aged couple who have been holding these monthly soirees for over three years. There was good food, lawn games, dancing and congenial conversation. Dart confirms that everyone there was very nice and he had fun.
Here comes the paragraph Dot must have been dreading. “I’ll let you in on a little secret about it, too. We promised to be truthful, always, so no matter how it hurts, or what the consequences may be, I’ll tell you. No matter how nice the girls were or how good a time I was having, I wished every minute that I could be with my Dottie. It maybe shouldn’t be called such a nice time because it made me miss you so much.”
He talks with great anguish about his swimming qualification test, which he flunked again. Now he has to have swim practice for 30 minutes every night until he can swim the required 150 feet. He was decked out in full life jacket and was required to jump off the 17-foot tower. He’s embarrassed by how much time and hesitation and urging was necessary to force him off that platform. “Frankly, Dot, I was scared! Well, as you can see, I lived, or at least I have lived for now.” Considering that he’s confessing all this to a girl who could swim before she could walk, I’d say he’s mighty brave!
It comes as no surprise to me that his test scores were better than he’d predicted. He got a 98 in electricity and a 95 in math. Still, he thinks his scores on future tests in other subjects may bring his average down.
He thanks Dot for the two good letters he received from her today, and hopes to have time to answer them completely soon. As for her request that she be allowed to send him something to help him out, he has no ideas. He says he just received a year’s supply of blades for his Schick injector razor, the soap he uses costs 30% less for him than it would on the outside, and there is no time for him to read. He suggests that if she’d really like to do something nice for him, she could send a picture of herself to his mother. She’d mentioned recently how much she and Pop wish they had one. “If all goes well, maybe in the future we can spend our lives doing nice things for each other.” What a nice thought to end the letter.
