Today’s letter comes from the Pepsi-Cola club in San Francisco where Dart is spending some of his generous liberty hours. He explains that he works one eight hour shift in the morning and then has no obligations to the Navy until 0800 two days later! He’s supposed to call  in every now and then to see if his name has shown up on a draft, which is a term he’s used when he talks about guys getting their orders to ship out. From the sounds of it, when the draft comes, it all happens very quickly.

He has two goals while in SF: One is to try to find his way to the model railroaders club; the other is to get to the “National Defender’s Club” where he might be able to score a couple of tickets to this week’s symphony concert. Have you noticed how often Dart mentions the various clubs he attends in the cities of San Francisco and Oakland? Hospitality House, Pepsi-Cola, USO, National Defenders, just to name some of the recent ones he’s mentioned. My assumption is that these are hang-outs for service members where they can relax, get a meal, meet new people, maybe play some cards or write letters. I feel a sense of pride that our country provided such easy hospitality to young men and women who were lonely, homesick, bored or broke. Did we take better care of each other then? Did the war make us all feel more like family?

The mail brought more goodies for Dart this morning. He received a box of homemade cookie pieces from Dot. They didn’t start out as pieces, but that’s how they arrived. He says he gobbled up most of them on arrival and he has no hope of the rest surviving the day. He also got a care package from his spinster aunts and their bachelor brother containing candy, nuts, stationery and monogrammed handkerchiefs. The latter item is banned in the Navy, but he’ll put the rest to good use.

He adds that he got a letter from a high school buddy who’s been practicing amphibious landings with the Navy and reports that he loves the Navy chow. “But not as much as I love you,” quips Dart.

When Dot begins her letter, she’s listening to Nelson Eddy on the radio, singing “Shortnin’ Bread.” She tells Dart that Nelson and Paul Robeson are her two favorite classical singers. That leads me to wonder what a classical singer is doing singing “Shortnin’ Bread?”

She’s happy he and the guys enjoyed her food package. She asks if he’s received the cookies yet. “If you’re not in sick bay, then you haven’t,” she jokes.

After a brief pause to listen to Nelson Eddy singing “How Do I Love Thee?,” she wishes Dart were here to listen with her. “As long as I’m tossing wishes around, I wish you were here in civilian clothes and that the war were over.”

She recalls three years ago tomorrow when she was listening to a classical concert on her dorm radio early Sunday afternoon. The broadcast was interrupted by the announcement that Pearl Harbor had been attacked.

“Many people said it wouldn’t be a long war. Surely not more than a year. Well, now it’s three and I don’t understand how any of the countries can keep up such ‘wholesale manslaughter’ much longer. Where’s it all going to end? What will we gain from it? Enough to pay for all the heartbreak and suffering it has brought forth? If it’s the ‘war to end all wars,’ that will be something. God grant that it be so. Why can’t everyone concentrate on love? The love of family and friends, instead of territory and power. Why don’t I quit blowing off steam and get to bed?”

It sounds like the naive rantings of a simple young girl, but I feel the pain and the truth in every word. It also sounds similar to Dot’s philosophy now, with the endless wars. She still maintains that the reasons to justify war remain the same throughout the ages, but in retrospect, those wars seldom seem to advance the human cause.

She shares his sense of homesickness. For her, it is a pining for the few moments they had together at his home in Cleveland. She agrees that they hope and dream of the same things and she’s confident that they’ll see their dreams come true together.

There’s a cute story about the chorus of girls that greets her every morning at work. (Not to be confused with “chorus girls,” she says.) They always ask, “Does he still love you?” Today she had to say she wasn’t sure because she’d not had a letter since Monday. With this afternoon’s letter, she’s happy to be able to assure them that he still does love her. She tells Dart if anyone ever asks him about her love, he can say she truly does, “And from the way I’m looking at your picture, I see no change indicated in the future.”

Her mother has suggested that she needs to practice her handwriting instead of her usual printing so that she’ll be able to cash checks. Dot doesn’t see much sense in it, but being the optimist, she thinks it might improve her chances of having checks to cash.

The final tidbit of the letter is that she’s been moved to the gift wrapping desk at work and she expects to be wrapping packages in her sleep.