It must be very late as Dart writes this letter because he has just come home from his first night at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He expects he’ll be writing a lot about the job from time to time, but he wants to give Dot a flavor for it now.
He liked his first shift very much. It seems to be a fairly easy job, and he may even have lots of time to get school work done while he’s there. There are men he’ll need to watch out for, and others who seem like “swell fellows.” There’s one guy there who’s nicknamed “Atom Bomb” because of the way he bellows.
He enjoys seeing the process of getting a newspaper out and he’s seen the whole operation except the press room. He makes frequent trips out to 118th St and Superior Ave. to pick up wire photos, sometimes driving a Plain Dealer van. He was thrilled to see the first run of the morning papers coming up the conveyor from the press room at 7:45 this evening.
The last deadline for the morning paper is 1:00 AM, at which time, he’s done. He’s heard that copy boys are often dismissed a few minutes early so that they can catch the “owl” streetcars that leave at 1:00.
Because he’s too tired to write a long, sweet letter, he’ll just try to answer some of the points in her recent one. He hopes this letter reaches her in time to cheer her up during her upcoming difficult days. So, here comes his response to her letters.
“All right, kettle. I’m just as black as you are. Satisfied now? Only I’m a little sore at the time we wasted in not trying to teach me some of your fast steps. I’m glad you don’t like to be thrown all over the place. In my own little prudish opinion, it doesn’t look very lady-like. It may take you only 10 minutes to show me everything you know in fast stepping, but it’ll sure take much longer than that to teach me! I didn’t know that your dance lessons were of the Arthur Murray (social) variety.”
It’s too bad she doesn’t like her letters. He certainly likes them, and he wanted to believe they both liked the same things.
How he wishes he weren’t so much of a worrier. She surely gets excited about things, and he wishes he could do a little more of that.
He’s wondering about the “other operation” that doctors had said she may need to have. Now she’s saying she thinks the doctors were nuts to believe that. Is she able to tell him what kind of operation that was? Is it too personal for her to talk about. If so, he hopes the day will come when she feels able to discuss it with him.
Today’s mail brought his discharge records for his terminal leave from the US Navy. That means his terminal leave check or savings bond should be arriving soon. Also he got a note from the editor of Skyline telling him of the meeting next Friday evening.
He was very happy to learn that she’s doing so well at her new job that she’s receiving high praise from the “higher ups.” He writes in giant red letters, underscored no less, “I’M PROUD OF MY DOT!”
How he hopes nobody at the phone company holds it against her that she’ll be moving to Cleveland. He doesn’t think there is any way she could get him to move to Greenwich unless she were able to get him into Columbia. “I guess it’s alright, though, because I’d rather not be married to your family. It’s you I want!”
He explains that he wrote that long diatribe about voting because he was expecting a big argument about the way he voted. He was under the impression that the Chamberlains were straight ticket Republican voters so he wrote his disapproval of the practice for any party. Now he launches into another fiery diatribe on the same subject, talking about voting for the right man regardless of his party affiliation; choosing the right men to lead the country, etc. The whole thing sounds highly chauvinistic with 70 years of hindsight.
He redeems himself by closing on a tender note. “I wish that I could be there, if my being there could help you over your rough days. I’d like to give you a back rub if it would help. Remember (of course you do!) the nights we lay on the couch at Sunapee? Will we ever be through getting acquainted with each other by talking? Hope not. I hope we’ll always have something to whisper to each other about. Of course, the other way of getting acquainted is nice too. I love you.”
# # #
Dot begins, “Despite my good intentions and many attempts to do so, I never did write to you last night. Nancy and I talked about some of her mentally disturbed patients and the men (in my case the man) in our lives (not implying there’s any connection between the former and the latter subjects of discussion).”
At 2:00 AM, they went down to the kitchen, hoping for a hot cocoa with marshmallow fluff. Sadly, there was no milk, so they improvised sandwiches of marshmallow fluff, peanut butter and jelly! For good measure, they added cheese and crackers, olives and ginger ale.
Their planned hike devolved into a couple of trips to the mailbox, after they hung around talking the whole day. They cooked their meal at Nancy’s house and caught a movie before Nancy caught a train back to her job.
The movie they saw was some ancient thing whose name escapes Dot, starring Charles Boyer and Claudette Colbert. Both girls agreed it was awful, and a total wast of $.70. To console themselves, the both had genuine pre-war banana splits. Dot declares it was the second banana split of her life, and positively her last.
She’s imagining that just about now Dart is leaving for his second night at work. She’s eagerly awaiting a report on how he likes his job. She’s with him in spirit and wishing him all the luck in the world.
A letter from her old roommate Ellie came today. Don (her husband?) returned to school this semester and is doing well.
She wishes Dart had reminded her that his father had a birthday coming up. She’s not holding him responsible for her forgetfulness, but until she gets all the family birthdays fixed in her mind, she’d appreciate a heads up.
Last night, she missed Dart in that “awful, penetrating way.” How she’d love to be able to attend the Andrews Alumnae Banquet in February (and squeeze in a visit to Dart’s home) but there’s no way to justify the expense. It’s a good thing that dreams don’t cost a thing or she’d be a pauper.
And now, I must give you some bad news. This is the last letter I’ll be posting from Dot for the remainder of 1946. I can tell from Dart’s upcoming letters that she continued to write regularly, but six weeks worth of letters have vanished over time. I’m hoping, through Dart’s letters and my onversations with Mom to fill in some of what transpired in Dot’s life during these missing weeks. I feel the loss of each letter like a physical jab, but I’m so very grateful the the hundreds of letters that remain.