It’s a brief note from Dart, with the good news that he no longer needs to wear a pressure bandage on his incision. Instead, the docs have substituted a thick pad. Dart quips, “It feels like I’m driving with 6 people in the back seat.”

Some more trivia follows; Chicago is gearing up for a big snowstorm, Dart went to church this morning which cost him a visit from the newspaper boy, so he had nothing to read all day, he wanted to call Dot but was ordered to a work detail and missed his chance.

Dot settles in to write a long letter, full of news. She likes Dart’s new stationary, but would prefer to get longer letters on cheaper paper. (His fault for writing such good letters.)

She is delighted that Dart wrote to her mother so the two of them can get better acquainted. (How I wish those letters had survived the decades, but I’ll try not to be greedy.) She goes on for about a page about songs that are “big on the Andrews Hit Parade,” such as “Choo-choo Baby,” “This Will be My Shining Hour,” “I’ll be Home for Christmas,” and “My Ideal.” These titles make me want to do a little research and see if I can dig up the ones that have survived into our current age.

She’s still struggling with her play-writing assignment and is extremely excited about going home. She only wishes Dart had the same thing to look forward to. She muses that if she decides to do her co-op work assignment in the Cleveland area, she’ll be away from home for almost a year!

Dot’s mother had written that Dot’s big brother Gordon would be getting home that night for a five day leave before reporting for active duty. Dot is distressed because that means she won’t have a chance to see him before he goes. If she could just get home, it would be the first time in two years that the whole family was together (And, in wartime, who knows when – or if – that might happen again.)

She got the proofs of her class portraits on Friday, and true to form, she is a harsh critic. “The trouble is, they look too much like me. Boy, they certainly didn’t go out of their way to add a little glamour. Guess they thought it didn’t fit my ‘poisonality.'”

At the time she was writing, many of the girls were parading around the dorm in their formals, making the place look like prom night. Some of the girls are required to wear their fancy dresses to a violin concert the next night, and the rest of them didn’t want to be out done, so everyone was modeling their finery.

Dot had plotted an idea to escape the formal dance next Saturday. She asked the school leadership “If some unfortunate soul does not have a formal to wear, wouldn’t that poor girl just have to sit out the dance upstairs?” The answer was that the “unfortunate soul” would have to attend wearing “civilian” clothing (street attire). “So I guess the only thing left for me to do is to drag the rag up from the cellar and wear it, regardless of self pride,” wrote Dot. “All this was to let you know that even though I’ll be here physically on the 18th, mentally I’ll be at Great Lakes.”

She wraps up with a humorous account of some hi-jinx in her room, which I invite the reader to check out for yourself. She promises much more new in tomorrow’s letter and signs “Love you, (really!!) Dot.