Dart didn’t write last night, and has no excuse except that he was too tired. He’s learned the news of her confinement through a phone call she made earlier today, and he’s disheartened. He knows they were both so excitied about finally going to a dance together, and he’s sorry they have to wait. He, too, is still nursing a cold that seems to be hanging on for weeks.
He had a brief foray into job-hunting today, putting in has application as a draftsman at a local company. There were no openings, but the company spokesman wasn’t at all discouraging. He accepted Dart’s application and told him he’d keep him in mind for the next opening.
He and his folks did a better-than-average house cleaning yesterday, and then he attended another railroad club meeting tonight, returned home early and promptly fell asleep on the davenport. He awoke hours after his folks went to bed, climbed the stairs, and promptly went to sleep again. I suspect his cold, fatigue, and discouragement about school are all intertwined to cause his general malaise. I hope something breaks loose for him soon.
Tonight, he and Homer went to several movie theaters before finding one that had standing room available for a mediocre film. They stood through “Because of Him,” which Dart deemed just good enough to keep them from leaving. His letters give a sense of an apparent population explosion going on around the Cleveland area. Jobs are hard to come by, colleges are near capacity,stores have no stock, and theaters are sold out all over town. Had the city adjusted to the reduced population when the boys all left to fight the war, and now must readjust to their return? Are the returning servicemen trying to catch up on years of deprivation by snatching up all the merchandise and movies, attending college, moving into their own homes, etc.? Maybe some guys from smaller towns outgrew their childhood homes after having “seen the world,” and are flocking to the larger cities. In any case, these letters give a sense of shortages and crowds and an urgency to get on with things.
He tells Dot of an interesting conversation he had with Gil the other night when he and his folks paid a visit to Jessie, Gil and their little girls. Gil is very interested in the prefabricated houses that are beginning to pop up around the country. There’s no distributor of such homes in Cleveland, but Gil’s company is vying for the chance to become one. He was telling Dart of the practicality, efficiency and adaptability of the designs, and Dart seems to have hung on every word. He always thinks of Dot, no matter the topic of conversation, but even more so when it involves things they’ll be personally involved in as they move forward.
“I’ve been moping around here almost lost since you went away. It’s as though you were permanently far away, instead of a mere 35 miles and 1-1/4 hours.”
He must pull himself away from his “chat” with her in order to write to her mother and to Miss Palmer. “Oh, how I wish I could tell you how much I love you and miss you, Dot. The feeling’s more intense, and more sure, and more deeply-rooted after each time we are together.
# # #
Dot is feeling pretty sorry for herself, stuck in the infirmary, trying not to see the fellas arriving at the dorm outside her window to pick up their dates for the dance. But some good news from Joyce turns her mood around right quick. Dart is coming to see her tomorrow!
She has spent her day reading women’s magazines and a historical novel called “The Victory of Salamis.” She’s enjoyed the latter much more than she though she would, but all this passive reading is making her restless.
She couldn’t help but notice that Dart used the word “huge” in a recent letter, underlined and circled. She assumes that was his not-so-subtle way of telling her she had once again misspelled the word in her letter. (She often uses an h in place of the e.) “I guess I’ll blame it on love, so it’s really your fault. Why reprimand me for it?,” she quips.
She ends her short letter with a very supportive paragraph: “No matter what school you go to you’ll make good, and then won’t Case be sorry they passed up such valuable material. OK, so you can’t master physics or calculus. Kindly tell me how many physics or calculus masters could write about a navy yard in such a way that their readers are not only wide awake, but are very much interested in what they are reading? And, after all, does the average American spend more time solving calculus problems or reading newspapers and magazines? All I can say is ‘They’ll be sorry.’ Remember, Dart, there are lots of us who know you can write, who are with you 100%.”