This hurried letter from Dart resembles recent ones from Dot. It’s a schedule of activities he completed during the day as he readies himself to return to duty. Haircut, collecting gear for boot camp, shipping his model interurban cars home, packing his limited belongings, etc. He also reports mailing a package to Dot.
Yet after all that, he feels miserable. He’s almost certain he’ll be staying in the “health factory” for awhile longer. The thought depresses him because he simply wants to get well.
Stealing a line from Reader’s Digest, he closes with “Keep smiling, my favorite chin-up girl!”
Dot begins her letter with the question on everyone’s mind; “Off the ice bag yet?” Of course, we know he is, but that letter hasn’t made its way to Greenwich yet.
She reports that today was the busiest day so far at Franklin Simon, but she loved running back and forth across the store, keeping customers happy. She was equally happy to return to the Pecsok house to find that, once again, dinner was waiting and Chuck had been fed.
After four weeks of waiting, the Chamberlain family has finally heard from Dot’s brother, Gordon, from ‘somewhere in the Pacific.’ Says Dot, “It sends chills up my spine, to think of him out there in that vast ocean. …God bless him and all the others like him. And may all of you be able to come home for good soon.”
In this deeply personal collections of letters, it seems the war is usually a minor character. When it makes an appearance, it still catches me a little by surprise. This is a conflict that truly involved millions of private individuals like Dot and Dart over a large part of the world. We’ve not seen a war so all-encompassing since – and I pray we never will again.
Dot thanks “the old man of experience” for his advice about getting through the early weeks of a new job. “I’ll try and do as you say, ‘tho I’d prefer it if you’d come and show me how.”
She tells him that simply reading the paragraph where he had the imaginary conversation with the telephone operator made her heart beat twice as fast. How cute she is! I hope she’ll soon have the real experience.
Because tomorrow is Memorial Day, this letter will probably not be mailed until Wednesday. She closes by saying that she may be busy, but she thinks of him constantly.
