It’s a red letter day for Dart with a stack of 17 letters waiting for him when he reached San Diego. Eleven of them are from Dot, including one written as recently as January 29.
There’s a huge inspection tomorrow morning which the crew has been preparing for almost since leaving Charleston. The ship has been scrubbed, painted and polished, including a diesel rub on all of her exterior surfaces. Once the ship was looking shiny and new, the men aboard turned their attentions to their personal uniforms and haircuts. Dart hopes they do well so they can have the maximum amount of liberty while in town.
He has explicit directions to Ira Cotton’s house in San Diego and he plans to visit as soon as they pass inspection, he makes two phone calls to Cleveland, and gets a haircut.
He ends his brief note with an enthusiastic “Oh, Darling, I love you! Don’t ever stop writing such wonderful letters. You keep life worth living.”
# # #8
As Dot sits down to fill four pages, Ellie is tossing and turning and trying to sleep. For once, it isn’t Dot’s lamp that’s keeping her awake, but rather plain, old-fashioned excitement about her trip home with Tip. How Dot wishes she had something exciting to write to Dart about, but anything exciting would involve him, so he’d probably already know it.
There is nothing exciting for her this weekend. She and Janie are the only girls who’ll be in the house, and Janie will be gone tomorrow night to attend a dance. That’ll leave Dot with lots of time to write letters, iron, and feel sorry for herself.
Tip will be coming upstairs to see the girls’ newly decorated room tomorrow, so Ellie has spent hours today washing and scrubbing everything. Dot washed the windows, ironed and hung the curtains and dusted some of her things. The room gleams! She promises she’ll do as thorough a cleaning job for Easter if Dart will promise to be home by then.
She’s very much looking forward to next weekend when she’ll go to the Andrews Alumnae Banquet and stay with Dart’s parents. She’s eager to see her old school chums, but even more delighted at the idea of seeing Helen and Dart, Sr. She tells Dart that a year ago, she never would have believed that she’d get as homesick for his home as she gets for hers!
Does he have any idea how much she misses him? It’ll be worse this weekend because she’ll have so much time on her own to dwell on her loneliness. “The Navy would be doing me a great favor if they would leave you in San Diego when you arrive there on Sunday. Don’t tell them that, though, or they’ll be sure to take you with them to the Pacific.”
She’s managed to fill four pages, but she doubts this letter will be saved for posterity. (Little does she know!) She hopes it serves to tell him what she’s told him before, and what she hopes to be telling him forever: “I love you very much, my Darling.”