It’s a long letter from Dart today, covering such topics as the enchanted phone call, Navy Day, the trouble with people, and Dot’s most recent letters. Naturally, he throws in a little romance too.
He estimates that he feels 11000% better after talking with her last night, even believing that life may be worth living. He thinks they should agree to stop letting Norfolk and Kent State get them down and just let sleeping dogs, like the “hillbilly roommate from Pennsylvania” lie.
Her episode with the hillbilly roomie reminds him of another thing they have in common; their inability to concentrate on uninteresting material if there is noise in the room. That got him into trouble at Case when he was trying to study amidst the chatter, chaos and bedlam of his roommates.
He describes Navy Day on base. There are countless visitors to the place, including the one men’s barracks and the one WAVES barracks which are open to the public. All hands must be in uniform all day. Overhead, navy planes are putting on a constant demonstration of their formations, including turns, loops, and dives. It reminds him of the show the planes from the Shangri-La gave the Haggard as she was on her way to join the fleet last April.
The one thing he should be doing now is laundry, but he still has a few clean clothes and no place to wear them, so he’ll continue being lazy for a while longer.
He’s full of rare praise for the helpfulness and efficiency of the base postal office where he collects his mail. His good opinion may have been boosted by the fact that there were two letters from Dot waiting for him today. Then, for no apparent reason, he launches a brief salute to the 24-hour clock system used by the military. That seems just a little random, but now we know his feelings on the subject.
Another random thought is how many people he’s seen today with a particular emblem on their uniform; it’s the affectionately named “Ruptured Duck”, a golden eagle inside a circle which is the the highest decoration the Navy awards.
As Dart is sometimes prone to doing, he gets a little preachy on the subject of his fellow man (and woman, for that matter.) It seems to him that all most of them think or care about is sex and they debase themselves by taking it all so casually. At least animals limit their public displays to certain seasons, but the folks he’s surrounded by seem to be emulating the debauchery of the old Romans and Greeks just prior to the downfalls of their civilizations. Letters like this seem to show Dart as a judgemental prude, but I think that’s an indication of his relative youth. In spite of the fact that the man I knew was a noble guy of great integrity and self-control, he always had an appreciation of sexual inuendo in language, a passion for bawdy limericks, and he could accept the foibles of his fellow man with a twinkle in his eye. I think he became comfortable in his own skin as he aged, and therefore, more comfortable with people who were different from him.
In response to Dot’s letter, he writes, “You said the the ‘I love you’ you wrote came from the same heart and lips that said it a week before. Does it still come from the same mind, too? I think that a certain amount of mind belongs there, too. The same eyes and ears, heart and mind received those words here, Dot. And all those parts are wishing for the everlasting continuance of those words from you. The way I want to see ‘I love you’ is to watch your lips as you form the words.”
He hopes that if he ever sees her mean roommate again he can be polite to her, because that’s what Dot would want from him. If it were up to him, he’d treat her as badly as the brat has treated Dot.
He wishes her continued good grades and he sends his love. Then he added a P.S. “Every minute of the day, I love you. You are my guiding star, the greatest gift from Heaven that a man could ever receive. You are Happiness and Peace of Mind. You are the one I love, the one who loves me, the one who will be my wife. There is no greater longing, nor greater love, nor greater happiness. I love you, Dot.”
Dot’s letter borders on silly. She’s writing it from her friend Janie’s room and Janie is cracking her up by speaking in weird voices and funny accents. Each girl is too busy trying to read what the other has written to her fella that neither is writing much.
Dot and Janie are two of only four girls in the house this weekend, so the place is relatively quiet. Dot took the opportunity of her roommate being gone to thoroughly clean their room, even going so far as to scrub the closet floor.
She’s going to try to write some more tomorrow before she and two other girls go to church. (As it turned out, they slept too late for additional writing and she left for church after simply adding that she loves him oodles and oodles.) Janie adds a note that they are rebuilding the staircase this weekend after Dot tore it down trying to get to the telephone when Dart called.
