Dart had another confession in this letter. This time, he confessed to reading the letter Dot wrote to his folks after Pop offered to let him read it.
Because Dart isn’t too worried about his Spanish test yesterday, he thinks he must have done poorly. He suspects he doesn’t know enough Spanish to realize how bad he is at it.
“I’ll have to see the VA officer at school tomorrow because my check is late. If I see him it’ll probably be much longer because he has the Midas touch in reverse. Anything he does, anything he promises ‘will work out without a hitch’ always manages to become hopelessly fouled up. He’s a little frog trying to make a big splash and all he succeeds in doing is to spread mud all over everything.”
Dart voted today for the first time. He told Dot that “like most people who don’t jump when their party says ‘Jump!’, he voted a split ticket. He voted for Lausche, the Democratic candidate for governor, whom Dart sees as a paragon of political virtue. He doubts he’ll win because no Catholic can ever carry the rural sections of Ohio. He had plenty to say – none of it good – about the Republican candidate who remains nameless in the letter. He voted on the Republican side for US Representative. He believes Mrs. Bolton to be an intelligent, progressive, level-headed woman who has earned re-election. For a newly-minted voter, he certainly has strong opinions of everyone running for every office. His trust seems to run more often with the Democrats, but not always. I found it interesting that the races for Governor and Lt. Governor were separate, allowing for the possibility that the top two positions in the state could be held by different parties. I wonder when that changed in Ohio?
He continues with his critique of various candidates for multiple pages. The man obviously read a lot and paid attention. What more can be asked of a voter?
Finally, he changes the subject to Dot’s recent letter. “Don’t worry, honey. You look plenty cute in a pair of dungarees and a sweater with your hair bent in different directions. I get a lump in my throat every time I think of you in a get-up like that at Sunapee. I’ll have to ask Gib to teach me how to get you to sit on my lap, though.”
It’s nice for him to hear that Chuckie and Linda are so good with their baby brother. In his observation, kids are usually jealous of younger siblings.
He’s sorry to hear that shorthand class has been cancelled. He knows how determined Dot was to make a go of it.
“I don’t think Mom and Pop could be persuaded to chaperone our honeymoon. I’d feel funny asking them and I know they’d feel funny being asked.”
He tells Dot he loves her now and forever before signing off for bed time.
# # #
Dot’s letter is a birth announcement for her new niece, Gretchen Ann Meyerink. She’s a robust baby, and big sister Gale seems happy with her arrival.
Tonight, Eleanor hosted a party for the bowling team from Rogers. Just as Dot was about to go upstairs to bed, the group decided to dance. They rolled up all the big rugs and the fun started. At first, Dot sat on the stairs to watch the festivities. Then, she grabbed Dart’s photo from the piano and started dancing with “him.” She tells Dart they did better than they’d ever done before.
“All too soon the beautiful music was interrupted by a Spike Jones record and everyone stopped dancing. Frank, a salesman in the housewares department announced that he wanted to jitterbug, but everyone either denied knowing how, or said they didn’t want to. Al of a sudden, Eleanor blurted out, ‘Hey, Dottie, why don’t you show Frank how to jitterbug?’ “Well, Frank is a wonderful dancer and I didn’t want to make a fool of myself in front of all those guests. El made things worse by telling them I’d won a dance contest, but she neglected to tell them it was five years ago and I’ve done almost no dancing since. Before I knew it, I was in the middle of the floor, being twirled and shoved around like a rag doll. I just went where he pushed me. I was lucky that most of the time I kept in step. About 10 minutes of that was enough for me so I came upstairs to bed. I would have enjoyed dancing a lot more if you’d been my partner and we’d been doing a nice, quiet waltz.”
She wonders if Dart voted today. She can’t wait to vote and hopes that she and Dart will never have any serious and lengthy arguments about politics. After all, she leans right and he has a definite left tilt.
“Just so you won’t lose any sleep over it, let me say you were perfectly right in walking Miss Miller home. Say, what kind of an ogre do you think I am anyway? Thanks for telling me, though Honey. I don’t think there’s another couple as much in love as we are or who trust each other so completely. Isn’t it nice we can?”