There’s no letter for Dart today from his favorite girl. He suspects he knows the reason, and he hopes she wasn’t feeling too terrible. If it hadn’t been bad, though, he’s confident she would have written. He wishes he could have been there to comfort her.

“I’m dead tired from staying up so late so much of this week. The work’s been pretty rough, and there’s no sign of a let-up. Tests in industry, Spanish, and literature within two weeks, plus prose workshop stuff and Skyline. Also some work to do for journalism. All that, and I still haven’t even accumulated my list of Christmas card addresses.”

He spent Monday evening putting the green chariot to bed for the winter. He drained the radiator so it wouldn’t freeze when the temperature drops. Now it must remain in the garage until it’s warm enough to get the old gal to the shop and have it winterized, if they plan to use it soon. If the family decides not to sell her, Dart hopes to put the heater in working order sometime.

He has lost several address that Dot has sent for Greenwich-based family and friends. He hopes she’ll send them along again, but he knows he has a lot of nerve asking her because he’s kept her waiting so long for an address she requested from him. He says she’d have every right to become a nagging wife, but her certainly hopes she doesn’t. (It seems that some men miss the obvious path to avoid having a nagging wife, and that’s to respond to her reasonable requests in a reasonable amount of time.)

The same procrastination that Dart’s shown regarding getting an address for Dot is filtering into the matter of groomsmen, too. He still hasn’t taken the time to call Tom to ask if he can be in the wedding. Speaking of which, if June 19th is an option for the big event, that would work out better for Burke, but might preclude Homer. He says again that he’ll have to get around to asking Tom.

“Mother met a girl, working at Singer, who knows you from Andrews. Her name’s Helen Veck. She says she ‘gets the biggest kick out of you.’ You’re a mighty pop’lar young lady, Dot. Mom seems to be catching on to her new job alright.”

In prose workshop, he received a B for his “Iron Hobby Horse” piece. He still thinks that with a little work, it could be an article for Model Railroader.

At this point in the letter, he draws a red line and the caption “Don’t bother reading from here on. ‘Taint wuth it.” The next five pages contain a rant on the current state of affairs in America. He really gets going, and so much of what he wrote way back in 1946 seems apropos today. I’ll try to capture the gist of it with a sampling of quotes.

There is most surely a revolution in progress in the USA. If it succeeds we run the risk if going the way of all once-great nations whose personal moral standards fell so low that they were reflected in their government.

I’m sorry to see stupidity and cupidity and laxity and outright contempt for truth and justice becoming a force in America.

…we have arrived at the same state from which we so ‘kindly’ liberated Europe. …today one man can imperil the health and the economy of our nation, by his defiance of anyone but himself.

The great, exalted intelligence of the public has been diluted and deluded and preyed upon by these little Hitlers until it is hopeless to combat them.

Such is the story of all who get to big for their hats and pants. Greece and Rome fell to indolence, barbarity, and bickering about who should get the lion’s share of the wealth.

Maybe the Russian papers were right. Maybe the recent election didn’t reflect the true wish of the people. It is true if what appears about our national thought turns out to be true: We have no national thought.

We have become a nation of wolves, damning all but ourselves. We damn each other or each other’s color or facial features, or wealth, honesty, religion or education.

The collective mind of a free people has been duped! We place a premium on mediocrity. Ignorance, prejudice, and hatred have been capitalized, until they rule in the place of justice, freedom, and a desire to do right by everyone.

He never mentions names or political parties. I’m struck, of course, by how most of these thoughts would ring true for many Americans today. In a way, I also take comfort in knowing that we have suffered previous crises as a nation, and still, we’re here.

Dart closes with a sinister “Yours forever (or until the Commissar of Procreation and Race Purification says differently)”

His PS says that if that should happen, he’ll still always be hers, and hers alone.