Dart’s unit has received no mail since they moved off the ship and into temporary barracks. He expects to be among 50 men transferred tomorrow to the Naval Operating Base for temporary duty, so his address should remain the same for a while. He’s not looking forward to temp duty, because he’s likely to get either mess hall or deck hand.
He’s spent the evening writing lots of letters, including a 12-pager to his folks. Although he warned Dot that he wouldn’t be calling her on Wednesday, he now feels guilty and homesick for not having called her.
He goes on a little rant about how much he hates being in the Navy and concludes there’s no point in pitching a fit because there’s nothing to be done except await discharge “and we have a place of our own where we can be secluded and happy or where we can invite people who are not uncouth.”
That House Presidents’ meeting she wrote about sounds just like Navy efficiency. He pities her. He urges her to quit worrying about grades because, as he’s always suspected, she does well in English. From what he can tell from her letters, she’s really digging in to college classes and doing her best, which is all anyone can be expected to do.
There’s nothing else he can write about tonight. He loves her and misses her, but he’s at a loss as to how to express it. He fills the fourth page with one of his funny little sketches of a soggy sailor standing watch over a trash can in the driving rain. A good metaphor for his mood, I’d say.
“Just a wee note tonight to let you know I’m thinking about you constantly and I’m wondering what the Navy has decided to do with you. Oh, if we could only have one of our long talks tonight, I’d feel so much better. I’ve got to get mail from you tomorrow so I’ll know where to send my letters and so I won’t have this awful feeling of ‘not knowing.'”
She misses him terribly and wonders when she can speak her love to him in person. She dares to hope he’ll be discharged by next spring.
One of her housemates went out tonight with her “feller” and came back with a “sparkler.” Of course, it’s not as pretty as Dot’s ring, but Dot had the grace not to mention that fact. It seems as though engagements are a near daily occurrence at Kent State University these days. I guess it’s all that pent up demand that was delayed by the war.
She’s going to bed early because she feels positively rotten, “But it’s not what you think, so who’s blushing now?” she asks. Yes, I think that confirms that their previous musing about a topic that made he blush must have been about her monthly cycle.
She signs, “All my love, all my life.”