Dart wrote this letter from a hospital bed in the surgery ward of the Great Lakes Naval Hospital.  He is almost looking forward to a leisurely stay in a quiet and comfortable spot. He thinks surgery is a few days away, with another operation to follow two weeks after that.

On Page 2 he gets positively mushy. “I long for the day when I can come back to  see your lovely face and beautiful brown eyes. I want to see you smile again. I want to hold you in my arms again, as I did on our last date.”

Remember – these kids had just three dates before he left Cleveland.  Look  how far their letters have taken them!

Dot is in rare form for this letter. She expresses deep joy at having received his letter, tells him how lonely she gets between letters and begs him to keep on writing. Having opened her heart up, she immediately retreats to a stand-up comic routine!

She teases him about his hair cut, saying she liked him just fine the way he was – hair and all. She asks him to query the Chief as to why he did not take her preferences into consideration when he shaved Dart’s head. Then she tells a funny and supposedly true story about a girl she knew enclosing a lock of her curls in a letter to her beloved and the beloved’s shocking response.

She has a great one-liner about boys being so rare a sight at school these days that when you ask a girl  which she prefers in a man – money or appearance, the girl is quick to answer “Appearance – and the sooner the better!”

She wraps up with a chat about weekend plans, the housemates who are chasing each other all over the house, and each girl in the place listening to a different record or radio station at once. She paints a vivid picture of life in a girls’ dorm.