Here’s a nice one from Dart, overjoyed, as usual by the long letters from Dot. He again tries to caution her about neglecting her studies in favor of writing to him “I really do appreciate those letters and your consideration of me, but are you sure it’s worth it? Personally, I think it is worth it, for both of us, but don’t neglect the schoolwork. The old man has spoken and will now retire to his mossy cave.”

He was over the moon about switching to a soft diet today. Not only was he given a nice variety of food for lunch, but the change of diet indicates he’s very close to having the bustle removed from his back. He talks about how he hopes to progress through the long recovery from his surgery. If the incision heals and if it doesn’t break open and if they got all the cyst out and if … then he MIGHT be home for Christmas.

His tone turns poignant as he talks about how unlikely it is that he could escort Dot to her winter formal in December. He wants her to go without him and have a great time, but “Oh, how I want to be there!”

He takes a break for a little nap and continues where he left off. He tells her he approves, of course, of her correspondence list, and confesses that he has received several letters from a Catholic girl he dated a lot in high school because she was “a lot nicer than most of the Protestant girls” he knew then. But he’d always hoped he’d meet someone special, and now he has!

In a funny paragraph, Dart reveals he would be a colorful individual if he let his whiskers grow. In contrast to his dark hair, his mustache is reddish-yellow and his sideburns are pure red. He shaved it off after a week, at the request of his nurse.

He takes a guess at Dot’s most recent puzzle, C. S. O. B. W. as “Chamberlain sends own best wishes.” Then, referring to her suggestion that someday she might actually write something really hot, he quipped “If you send something really hot, I probably won’t recognize it!” That line sounds like something my own husband would say. He never could figure out when someone was coming on to him!

He writes a few jokes he’s picked up from the guys on the ward and then announces he’s throwing in the towel. After her lengthy list of Greenwich celebrities she included in a recent letter, he feels “like a piker.” Of course, the only ones he’s interested in are the Chamberlains.

The exhausted sailor finally wraps up this letter he began at 10:30 AM at 6:15 PM and bids Dot good night.

Dot sent a quick postcard from her friend’s house, followed by a nice long letter. She tells an embarrassing story of starting to read his latest letter to her friends at lunch when the headmaster came by and asked if he could read it, too. She blushed, the headmaster blushed and then walked away. Later, he said he’d really like to read it, but he didn’t push it, so she didn’t offer. “Better be careful, tho’,” she cautioned. “You never can tell who may read your letters!”

She apologized that she had no snapshots of herself, but film around her campus is as rare as “A’s on my report card.” That’s another big contrast with today’s world. Who doesn’t have instant access to “snapshots” of themselves? Film? What’s that?

She’s glad it’s settled about the name thing. She agrees that he can call her anything he likes. She then told that a classmate asked her recently if Dart’s name was actually “Dartmouth.” Dot replied sarcastically that his real name was “Yale.” (Her father’s alma mater.)

She talks about her dad and her brother Gordon with his active sense of humor. She talks about her love of spaghetti. and she mentions how impressed she is that Dart can tell a train simply from it’s whistle.  She writes “When I was younger, I had a yen to ride a train, but unless I change my route from New York to Cleveland, I may never want to ride one again. Why, I’ve made that trip so many times that the cows along the way moo at me when I go by.”

She expressed her fear that she won’t repeat her B in chemistry after her pre-Thanksgiving exam. And she expresses remorse and embarrassment for not writing to his mother yet to thank her for sending the pictures of Dart. She vows she will write to her today, because the snapshots mean so much to her.

In response to Dart’s query about what she wants for Christmas, she replies “An A in chemistry, $500, and you!”

In closing, she wishes him a happy Thanksgiving, in spite of the fact that he’s in a hospital. At least, she says, you can be thankful it’s an American hospital and that you’re getting good care.” That rosy perspective is a trait Dot carries with her even now – most of the time. Just last week, as she lay on her bedroom floor for 11 hours because she had fallen and could not get up, she was thinking “Dot, those people in the Phillipines typhoon would be grateful to be here on this floor where it’s safe and warm and dry. Quite your bitchin’.”