Dart begins this letter wondering what’s wrong with Uncle Sam’s mail delivery these days. Mail has been scarce and Dot’s airmail she sent days ago still has not arrived. Me thinks perhaps Uncle Sam has his hands full with other matters.

He talks a lot about his potential leave; perhaps he can catch a plane, maybe train schedules will be favorable. Then again, the leave may be cancelled altogether. Everyone must just wait and see.

He talks also about his swimming lessons. He’s apparently making huge progress and the instructor thinks he can qualify on Thursday. After three attempts, he managed to complete one of the required tasks.

On a recent liberty, he went to Oakland and finally located the Eastbay Model Engineers Society and had a nice time “hobnobbing” with fellow railroad fans. He described the nice set-up they have for their great layout and their scale model trains. They rent the space for a dollar a month from the Santa Fe Railway. He went into lots of details about things that he admits would be boring to “outsiders,” but fascinating to railroad buffs like himself. “Believe it or not, there are lots of men in the country who go in for that sort of thing in a big way.”

He remembers that he had warned Dot there wouldn’t be a letter tonight, but he had not anticipated his “to hell with everything” feeling. Now he must get back to the books, but he feels so much better for having taken this respite to write.