Dart addresses this letter to his dear neglected Darling. If the beautiful, fluffy, clingy snow stays put for a few days, the city will have a pretty Christmas. Dart likens the street scenes to real-life Christmas cards.
Hw’s pretty happy with his pay raise at work. He also seems glad that he could sign up for more hours during his school break. He’ll be working in the telephone room from 6 to midnight a couple of nights. That should add to his regular $11.00 weekly pay check, and we all know he could use the money.
Although he hasn’t joined the City Club yet, he did have lunch there twice this week. He was even treated to a program by the Orpheus Male Chorus.
Kathleen (the woman who rooms in the Peterson apartment) got her divorce decree this week after her mother served as a witness in court. Dart does a funny riff in the letter about Kathleen’s mother and aunts when they’re all in the same room, flapping their jaws simultaneously. “I’m going to invent a machine that will generate power by picking up sound waves. Then, when they’re all here together, I’ll have perpetual motion.”
The model railroad club meeting was last night and Homer drove the East side members through a blinding snow storm to the far West side. They all had a swell time. After the next meeting, they will have been all around the circuit of members’ homes. Lots of the guys keep adding to their layouts and building or buying new equipment.
He relates another amusing story about a fire in the May Company display window of their big downtown store. With all the trucks that responded to the alarm, everyone thought there was another big disaster in the making. Fortunately, the blaze was confined to the window, and not even all of that. It seems that the automated Santa and his elves had been fire-proofed, and were standing together looking at the charred remains of the merchandise with jolly, goofy expressions on their ruddy little faces. A fireman gave the gathered crowd quite a good laugh when he threw a bucket of water in Santa’s face to cool off his smoking beard.
Dart received Christmas cards from two shipmates this week. He was happy to hear from them, but sad to have to tell them both that the “Mr. and Mrs.” address was a bit premature.
He still needs to answer Dot’s six-pager, but he needs sleep tonight so he doesn’t miss another Sunday at church. He misses her so much, and writes that home doesn’t seem very homey without her there.