Dart sounds restless. He’s had plenty of time for personal chores like laundry and letter-writing and now he’s looking for something else to fill his time. “This morning, from sheer want of something better to do, I went back to bed after breakfast, and slept until somebody found the tube I’d removed from the amplifyer of the record player.”

The town doesn’t offer much more than mediocre movies and an over-priced amusement park. On tomorrow’s 24-hour leave, Dart, Hal and the guys are thinking of going to Virginia Beach to see why it’s so exclusive.

Still no specifics on exactly when his leave will start. Somewhere between September 7 and 12, he hears. “Navy policy – Keep ’em dumb.”

He has begun sketches on a new house, incorporating some of the ideas from his first drawings, and improving some of the flaws. He’ll bring both sets of drawings with him on leave so he and Dot can discuss them at length.

He proclaims it a good sign that all he can think or talk about is the girl he loves. He’s eager to “sprout horns and a barbed tail and stop threatening to put an ice cube down her back.” He cryptically referred to a nickname she confided to him last week and asks if she’d mind if he used it once in a while. Hmmmm. I wonder if Mom will recall just what that nickname was.

In spite of a scarcity of incoming mail, he writes “The memory of our last two days together keeps me going.”

Dot’s entry today is a postcard from the lake. The picture side shows a melon-colored moon shining above a dark, choppy lake. On the back she writes “The card doesn’t do the lake justice. It’s really much prettier than this at night with the moon reflected in the water. All the scene needs now is you. See you a week from tomorrow? Will try to write a letter tonight. All my love, (.)