Well, Dart’s big news actually belongs to Hal Martin. He’s just received orders to report tomorrow to his home port of Boston for his duty assignment. He’s running around the base now to see if he can learn any more about what’s to become of him once he gets to Boston, but he’s an extremely happy sailor for now.

Dart would give anything to get shore duty anywhere – but to be stationed in or near his home would be ecstasy. Most of the men he knows from the Haggard who have the same number of points as he are being sent to ships. Dart believes that’ll be his fate as well.

For now, he and Hal are planning a nice celebration tonight in honor of Hal’s great fortune. Dart is very happy for his friend, but he sure will miss him!

He wishes he’d been in Cleveland on Sunday to share the first snow of the season with Dot. It’s usually such a pretty sight in his favorite city. He’d predicted that Dot would write to him about the Navy-Notre Dame game, and he was right. It’s sweet how patient he is with her detailed reporting of the game that she found such pleasure in. For his part, Dart wouldn’t know a touchdown from a hole-in-one, but he humors Dot.

A guy just came in with the news that Hal has been assigned to a destroyer based in Boston. Looks like sea duty after all. I guess he’s not as lucky as he and Dart had hoped.

He’s happy that she thinks his parents are swell. He’s happy that they think his fiance’ is so perfect. He’s happy they’re all in agreement that he has the best folks and the best girl in the world. “Oh, Dot. We’re all very happy abut the whole thing. I wish I could punctuate that by a sweeping embrace and a well-aimed kiss.”

He closes with, “Dot, I love you more all the time. So much more after our leave that it’d have seemed impossible before.”

Dot zipped off a quick paragraph at 10:30 Monday night, but had to stop because both her roommates were asleep and Miss Olin was coming up to massage Dot’s back. She’s done something to he shoulder that’s causing her quite a lot of pain.

She picks up the letter early the next morning, with her shoulder feeling much better, thanks to Miss Olin’s magic fingers.

A year ago this very day, Dart arrived at Union Terminal for his brief two and a half day leave. Oh, how excited she was to see him and how much she loved him, even then. But this day is so much better because all that was ahead of him — the fighting and the months at sea — is behind him now and he’s safe. She wouldn’t trade that for anything!

She’s intrigued by the USS Midway’s worldwide tour. She asks that Dart let her know if they’re looking for passengers, because she thinks it sounds like a perfect opportunity to see the world.

She’ll have to give serious thought to his question in a recent letter about how much is an “oodle” of fun. “Will answer that and whatever else I’ve left unanswered from yesterday’s letter this afternoon. Must get ready for school now.”

She enclosed the last three paragraphs of that “thing” he wrote, happy to hear that he’s planning on finishing it. Maybe we’ll get a peek at it in the future, if and when he does that.