Today’s letter is a vivid description of Dart’s visit to the liberty island. He went over with his buddy V.D. Hite, a guy from Ashland, KY and Cincinnati, OH. These two have lots of fun when they hang out together.

The liberty was a “dry” one – no beer included. Consequently, only about 20 men took the boat over to the island instead of the usual count of 80 when beer is provided. They spent the day swimming, beach-combing and getting thoroughly sunburned.

Dart describes for Dot all the weird and wonderful sea creatures they observed along the beach. They found a baby octopus and countless tiny hermit crabs who are not at all particular about the type of shell they occupy. The most fascinating creatures were the sea urchins. Dart and VD watched them for hours, careful to avoid their poisonous splines. Dart loved swimming in the warm, shallow water, as long as he was able to keep his feet away from the sharp coral.

He reports that he received an 89.5% on his fire control test. His crew mate, Hirsch, who took the test with the aid of a whole crew of senior fire control men assisting him with the answers, received a 90.5%. Dart felt deservedly proud of his accomplishment and rather miffed at Hirsch’s cheating. “I don’t think Hirsch likes me any more. I told him he should have said ‘we’ instead of ‘I’ when he gloated to me over the grade ‘he’ had made.”

Dart has been sitting for an hour, dreaming of Dot and trying to think of a new way to tell her how much he loves her. “I guess it all boils down to those three famous words, no matter how much it’s dressed up. And about the best way to get those words across is to whisper them softly into the ear of the person in your arms. My arms aren’t long enough to reach you tonight, so I guess I’ll have to write – I love you, Darling.”

Dot begins by remarking how nice it would be if she could write to Dart in the afternoons when she’s alert, rather than after midnight when she’s so weary.

She got two more letters from him today, the most recent dated April 2. She loves it when he’s in port because his letters get to her so quickly. She assumes that since the latest letter was written from port, it means he was not in on the raid on Okinawa.

Those  nurses at the Easter service must have been quite popular with the men who’d not seen a woman in 14 months. “Gee, maybe they’d even talk to me if I were out there. Guess you boys would talk to just about anything you didn’t have to salute.”

She comments that life “out there” sounds nearly civilized when he talks about all the radio programs he gets to  hear. She wishes she could be on one of those programs and send him a fond “hello” over the airwaves.

She’s grateful she didn’t know until after the fact that he was involved in the Tokyo raid. “I’m sure I’d turn grey if I knew about these things before hand. Your letters are so cheery I can’t even guess when you’re doing something exciting and when it’s all just routine.”

Referring to his comments about her spoiling kids who might be his, she says “If they aren’t ‘our’ kids, there won’t be any. Need I make any further comment?”

She notifies him that her bedroom window is the only one on the third floor in the rear of the house, and there’s no need for him to bring a ladder. “Just whistle. I’ll tie my bed clothes into knots and make a rope ladder. I did it once before when my parents and I didn’t agree on where I should spend my evening.”

Her mother let her drive the car a few blocks this evening, and she even got to turn it around twice! It felt wonderful! Her mom says she can probably get her license for her birthday. The Millers have a 1931 Austin they’ve said she could drive this summer, if she gets that license.

After a paragraph in which she quips about needing to buy some fan magazines in order to keep up on all the current pin-up girls, she closes quickly, saying she’s too tired to stay awake, but she loves Dart, Butch, Pete, etc.

This is one of the least personal letters Dart has written to Dot in months – perhaps since those long ones he wrote from Treasure Island explaining all that he was learning in his highly technical classes.

He’s been keeping very busy in port. All hands are employed keeping the Haggard in pristine condition. (Maybe they’re even more intent on her looks since she recently incurred such heavy damage in that submarine-sinking incident.) He explains to Dot that many of the ship’s exterior features like searchlights and gun turrets are protected by large canvas sacks that help keep salt, dirt and sea birds out. These coverings, fondly called “bloomers” by the crew, were beginning to look rather dingy, so new ones were ordered and installed. Now the ship looks so good that newcomers to port ask if she’s a new vessel.

“Now,” explains Dart, “the boys are turning to their pictures.” By that, he means original paintings of Varga girls, dice and tigers that crew members have created on the gun houses. “As soon as I saw those pictures when I first saw the destroyer with the 555 on her bow, I thought that here was a ship with a personality all her own.”

He goes on to describe that some of the other ships in the fleet have inferior original artwork, usually for the purpose of bragging about their successes in battle. He hints at several exploits the Haggard could boast about, if that were her nature. She, however, prefers to keep her victories – large and small – quiet. “Up to now, the Haggard’s been lucky and has done her share better than many.”

For a guy who’d much rather be in Cleveland, who has plenty of gripes about the Navy, who is not convinced that this war is even necessary, he sure has nothing but praise and affection for his ship.

In this letter he enclosed a little sketch drawn by a buddy from Treasure Island. It hasn’t survived with the letter, but it must have featured a “sweet potato” because Dart comments about how unpopular an instrument that is out on the high seas. “I found that out while practicing!”

At the bottom of the page, Dart drew a comical caricature of a scruffy, scrawny sailor carrying a tool box and sporting a three-day growth of beard. The sketch is labeled “Peterson on ship.”

Of the tragic news from yesterday, Dot writes, “The news of President Roosevelt’s death was such a shock that all I did was listen to the broadcasts. No matter what opinion I held of him, nor how I felt about his ideals, I still feel this is a terrible time to lose a leader. May God be with President Truman and guide him along the right paths. He has certainly had a heavy burden thrust upon his shoulders.”

Because tomorrow is a national day of mourning, nearly all retail establishments are closed. She hopes it’s not disrespectful, but she and Nancy are going on a long bike hike to take in some of nature’s handiwork. Later, Dot’s cousin Betty, Nancy, and Dot are going to see “National Velvet” and they’ll all stay over at Dot’s house.

She’s so proud of Dart for continuing to write such great letters every day for over two weeks. “Good going, sailor! See how long you can keep it up.”

She wants Dart to tell his friend with the place at Lake Sunapee that the Chamberlain cottage is almost directly across the lake from Soonipi Park Lodge, about 1/4 mile from Burkehaven and 1 1/2 miles from Sunapee Harbor. “Ask him what his opinion is of that location for a honeymoon. Get him to tell you all about it. Let him sell it to you.”

Talking again about his infant pictures, she says she’s sorry she got him riled about them, but even sorrier that she never got to see the one that riled him the most. She also has some of those embarrassing shots of herself as a baby that she hopes to burn before he can lay eyes on them, lest they give her a blush that would never leave.

She’ll have him know that she was not razzing him about getting money back from the government. She worked all year, had taxes withheld, and didn’t make enough money to justify the taxes. Did he hear about the simplified tax form they’ll be using next year? It only has four simple parts. 1) How much did you earn? 2) What did you spend? 3) How much is left? 4) Send it.

Now she’s too tired to write any more, but says she’ll try to add some later. “Later” turns out to be two days. She and Nancy went on a very long bike ride out into the countryside yesterday. They found a perfect little brook with a stone bridge across it and decided that’s where they’d have their picnic. They ate, talked and dangled their toes in the water until 4:00 when they observed a minute of silence in memory of the President.

Dot heard that all servicemen across the globe would be observing 10 minutes of silence, if at all possible. She wondered if he was doing that at the same time she did. She says some days she feels that he’s very close to her, and yesterday was one of those days. “It was almost as if all I had to do was call and you’d come, but it didn’t work. I tried.”

She will answer his masterpiece letter tomorrow, but for now she wants him to know how terribly sorry she was to hear that his childhood friend was killed. “That was a beautiful letter you wrote. We all feel the same way about this war as you do. Dad said that was one of the finest letters he’s ever heard. Believe me, I don’t read all my letters to my family, but I want other people to share all the wonderful philosophy and knowledge your letters give to me.”

Dart’s still in port. Mail call today yielded three more letters from Dot, nearly filling in the gaps that were left from previous deliveries. “Boy, how the fellas rejoice when the ‘sugar reports’ come in!” I love how these sailors have slang, jargon and nicknames for just about everything. I wonder how long it takes to become fluent in “sea speak.”

Dart’s looking forward to seeing “To Have and Have Not” in the Fantail Theater Under the Stars tonight. He tried to see it three times at Shoemaker, but the lines were always too long.

He too looks forward to the time he and Dot can do ordinary celebrations like coloring Easter eggs together. But she better be on her toes; that might be a good time for him to slip an ice cube down her back!

He announces that he’ll have to change the name of the ship’s theater to “Haggard Cloud-Roofed Shower-Bath because it has just started to rain. Looks like it’s not in the cards for him to see that movie he’s so keen on watching.

In a recent letter, Dot was imagining just what her reaction would be if she opened the elevator doors and saw Dart standing there. He admits to spending most of his time daydreaming about the same kind of thing, but he knows it’ll be a very long time before he can surprise her on a visit to Greenwich. Thinking about it only makes the waiting worse. When he does see her the next time, he hopes she’ll do that thing where she whistles sharply through her teeth. He gets quite a kick out of that little trick of hers. (Of course, he gets quite a kick out of nearly everything she thinks, does or wears.)

How he wishes they’d been born earlier so they could have met sooner so they’d be married by now.

Here’s another breezy, chatty, funny letter from Dot. She and Nancy went way out into the countryside surrounding Greenwich where they picked violets, Ruth Chamberlain’s favorite flower. As they walked and picked, they sang every round and duet they’d ever learned in Girl Scouts. They had “loads of fun.” That got me thinking – would two 18-year old girls today think it was “loads of fun” to sing silly old songs on a long walk while picking wild flowers? I can’t quite see it.

When they got home, Ruth let Dot drive as far as the Miller’s house. Although her mother was nervous, Dot vouches that everyone arrived safe and sound. Once there, Mrs. Miller suggested Dot practice driving their old Austin around the driveway. (Must be quite a driveway if one can drive around in it!) Then Dot and Nancy played baseball with the boys. Two-year old Chris was the pitcher and he was about to strike Dot out when Ruth returned to pick her up.

The night before, Dot, a cousin, and Nancy went to see “National Velvet.” She loved it! It was in Technicolor and was beautiful to watch in addition to being a very good story. She tells Dart that she’ll forgive him for not writing some night if he instead spends it seeing that film.

There was only one thing that happened today – and she only mentions it because it was funny. She got a call from the choir director at church telling her that she’d heard Dot had a lovely alto voice. Since they were in great need of altos in the choir, she wondered if Dot would consider joining. Dot thinks it might be a joke being played on the unsuspecting choir leader, but she agreed to join since she’d already promised herself to start going to church every Sunday anyway. “Of course, she hasn’t heard me bellow yet. She’ll be sorry, but she asked for it.” As usual, Dot is selling herself short. She has a very nice, harmonious voice and has spent most of her adult life singing in one church choir or another. She still sings in one today!

El and Don were all set to try the going-to-college-while-working-while-being-married arrangement, but Don decided it would be too hard, so they’ve postponed their marriage until 1948! El is very disappointed because they’ve already been engaged for a year and that’s a long time to wait. Still, Don will be safe in this country, and only as far away as Boston, so they can see each other often. In Dot’s opinion, Don is wrong to postpone and believes they could work it out, but El wants to do what makes Don happy. Besides, “little sisters” aren’t allowed an opinion.

In a surprise announcement, Dot declares her deep love for Dart. “Guess it’s ’cause you’re so smart in everything except what I’m glad you’re not smart about. It’s been 5 months, 6 days and 13 1/2 hours since I last saw you, and yet it seems like years and years. Oh, what I wouldn’t give for just 10 of any of the minutes I’ve spent with you. It would help to keep me going ’til we can be together again for a more permanent length of time. Say, maybe forever.”

Curfew is upon her and she must turn out the light.

Two of Dot’s  missing letters had been delivered to the other Peterson on board and finally found their way to Dart. Now he has no gaps in his letters from her.

He was able to see “To Have and Have Not” last night. He seems to have been impressed by it, especially Humphrey Bogart’s new girlfriend, Lauren Bacall.

Some of the paragraph describing the job he had yesterday was redacted by the censor. Whatever he was doing, it kept him in the hot sun all day and he got a whale of a sunburn. “I put Vaseline on my nose this evening, but my nose was so hot the grease started to smoke like an over-heated bearing. Finally cooled off enough so that I could see past it through the smoke.”

He broke a pattern last night by going to bed around the time of taps. That led to him do something he thought he’d never do, going against his principles and beliefs. He awoke and got out of bed at reveille this morning! He usually stays in the sack until moments before the breakfast line closes.

In closing, he tells her that the inversion of a couple of her letters made him do something she didn’t want him to do. He spilled the beans about the Easter flowers to his folks, admitting that it was all Dot’s idea and he had nothing to do with it. “Gee, Dot, I’m so proud of you for that! I’m the luckiest guy there is for being in love with a girl like you is the best thing that could happen to anybody.”

Tonight, Dot is spending the night with Toni Gale who gets up with the sun, so Dot will have to get to sleep early. The big news is that Toni’s Siamese cat is expecting kittens and she keeps snooping around all the dark corners of the house, looking for a place to deliver them. Dot put a comfy box in a nice spot, but Fifi seems to be unimpressed.

She’s still working at Franklin Simon and is still bored. No word on when, or if, she’s actually leaving there. She listened to President Truman’s first radio address today, deeming it “short and sweet.” She thinks he sounds quite young.

At a loss as to how she will fill the back of her first page, she recalls the sudden change of expression on Dart’s face the moment he realized she’d put an ice cube down his back. “Boy, once you discovered my dirty trick, you were up and out of that chair in two seconds flat and chasing me around with that deadly weapon. You even had me scared that you were going to succeed in getting it down my back. Brrr-rrr-rrrr! Bet it would have been cold! Was it, Darling? You poor boy! You’re a good sport, though, and I love you. Oh, how I love you!”

As I write this blog I think a lot about the fact that this growing love story has as its foundation a meager eight days of togetherness. Except for one night where these two kids stayed up late talking and being silent together, those eight days did not include nights together. In fact, there are perhaps only about 60 hours of their combined lives that have been spent in each other’s presence. The scarcity of time and shared memories makes each hour, each moment a precious jewel to be taken out in private, examined for new facets, cherished for its color and clarity, and put safely away again. Because they have no present time together, memories and future plans take on great power and importance. They are building such strong bonds now that when they’re able at some point to spend time with each other, everyday annoyances, petty differences, pesky distractions cannot possibly weaken those bonds. They’re living examples of the old adage “Absence makes the heart grow fonder.”

Dot encloses two cartoons featuring sailors with this letter and promises to write again tomorrow.

Dart had a big day, but can’t really say much about what he did or why it was special. “These tin cans will really put up one whale of a fuss when everything’s shooting at once. Makes a lot of noise and smoke, too.” He does say they did some “snappy drills,” and above the date, he writes that they’re still in port.

He got a chance to shoot a little gun today. He hopes the real gunner keeps his post because Dart never hit the target all day.

This evening, the radio gave the crew the news that journalist Ernie Pyle had been killed in action, “somewhere.” Dart thinks it’s a terrible loss because nobody had Pyle’s knack of reporting about the war with heart and compassion. He had a way of making everyone feel they’d known him for a long time. “Wish I had 1/4 the ability he had.”

The laundry is back up and running again, so the abbreviated “water hours” are over. He has lost a pair of new dungarees (Worn only once, for several days) and several pairs of new socks. He didn’t get to the laundry soon enough after they were cleaned and someone else walked off with them. “Maybe I’ll see some guy with ‘Peterson, DG, stenciled in green paint across the fantail of his dungarees and I’ll be able to reclaim them.”

He’s discovered that his locker will hold everything he owns, but he must put all 160 of his pounds against it to do so. Yes, he said 160. At a height of about 6’ 1”, he’s finally worked his way from emaciated to just plain skinny. Of course that 160 pounds includes his shoes, clothing and a wet towel!

He thanks Dot for sending the petals from the Easter corsage he sent to her. “American Beauties for a real American Beauty, eh? And don’t deny it! I know you are. I’ve seen you enough times to know it.”

He appreciates her happy Easter wishes, but he was having as happy an Easter as he could, and much better than some people he could think of. The only way his holiday could have been better was if he attended church with the Chamberlains in Greenwich or Dot attended with him and his family in East Cleveland. The weather Dot described that day was just the same as what he was experiencing, except his day was 35 degrees hotter than Greenwich!

He’ll see what he can do about getting someone to write to Nancy. Several guys he knows have been jilted while “out there,” and have sworn off any and all women except their mothers and sisters. All others are viewed as dangerous ogres.

He tells her he wants to spend the rest of his life proving how deeply and tenderly one person can love another. His parents have been doing it for 24 years, 11 months and 5 days. “We can do it too, I’m sure. But, Darling, that ‘if’ is so big, and getting bigger.” The “if” that he refers to with some frequency is what Dot has refused to let him mention – if he makes it home safe and sound.

Here’s another cute letter written while Dot is at work. Mr. Goldstein wants to see Dot do some work, but what’s the point if no customers come in to see that it’s been done? “Lazy? You bet, but it’s so much fun to be lazy.”

Today she waited on Dart’s double. Well, not exactly his double, but she was tall and thin with dark hair and brown eyes like his. She’s every sales clerk’s dream because she’s patient, pleasant, and never complains. “See, her personality resembles yours, too.”

This morning, she wandered down to the children’s department to see what the girls there were talking about. Just as she thought;     M-E-N. “We have to talk about them all the time to keep in mind what they are.” It seems to be an almost unanimous opinion that if anything in trousers asked you to marry him, you’d jump at the chance. Dot keeps it from being unanimous. “Of course my ideas are subject to change if the right man comes along, but he’s so far away now that I guess I won’t worry too much about it.”

In helping her try to think of things to fill up this letter, Mr. Goldstein suggested that she tell Dart he just got his car out of hock. “He speaks of it as a ‘neat little job,’ but since it’s a 1928 model, I’m not sure what kind of job it really is. Guess now-a-days, anything with four (threadbare) tires, a motor and a reasonable facsimile of gas is considered a luxury vehicle.”

Now that her letter to him is done, she can spend the evening writing to his parents.

Dart’s letter proves two things:  He didn’t get a letter from Dot today, and the thought of her joining the WAVEs haunts him. He spends four pages giving a detailed, disparaging account of what life would be like for her, should she decide to enlist, and what their future would be like. He’s obviously very concerned it could  bring an end to their relationship.

I often wish my dad were still around so I could ask him questions about these letters. In most cases, though, I think I knew him well enough to have a pretty good guess what  his responses would be. This obsession about the WAVEs stumps me, though. One of the biggest gripes he has is about how the WAVEs are treated so disrespectfully. Much of what he hints at is vile behavior and degrading language relentlessly directed at these women. That offends him. The other part of the letter, however, is painting WAVEs as cheap, hard women of easy virtue. It’s hard to imagine that in an organization the size of the USN WAVEs, virtually all of the volunteers would be that “certain kind of woman.” Was this a case of society being so put off by independent or strong women that the response to them was to tear them down? Or did the opportunity to serve one’s country in a time of war appeal mostly to free spirits or “loose women?”

Although he would never have called himself a feminist, my father was just that. He had an unwavering respect for, and appreciation of women. The Dart I knew had no double standard for the sexes. He respected smart women, enjoyed funny women, believed in equal rights and in advanced education for women. He wanted the same things for his daughters that he wanted for his son.

And yet, the perspective he shares in this letter sounds chauvinistic and judgemental. Maybe that was a function of his youth and inexperience. Or, like his infrequent racial insensitivity, perhaps it was a reflection of the times and culture. Maybe there was a general mindset that if a woman placed herself in the company of a large number of men (the US Navy), was willing to do menial tasks, and wore trousers, she must be asking for the abuse that was coming to her. In that regard, is it all that different from the plight of women in the armed services today? Have women made real progress in the military over the past 70 years?

This letter is unsettling to me because I don’t recognize my father in it. He is, however, very concerned that in his harsh and direct warnings about the perils of life as a WAVE, he might cause Dot any distress, hurt feelings or anger. He also recognizes that he could get into big trouble by discouraging her enlistment in a time of war, but he’s willing to risk it in order to persuade her of the folly of her plans. “Men who discouraged enlistments during the last war are still serving time in the Portsmouth brig. Nobody will stop me from dissuading you.” This, in full view of the censors.

It’s another short letter from Dot today. “And don’t think it’s because it’s too bothersome, cuz it’s not. The world will end before it’s ever a bother for me to write to you. I am fast realizing that there are only 24 hours in a day and nothing can be done about making any more. Just another shortage we must put up with – ‘ceptin’ this one won’t be helped by Victory.”

This morning she awoke early to practice with the church choir before the service. “Word must have leaked out that I was to become a member of the choir cuz I already noticed we had a slightly depleted congregation today.”

After church, she babysat for Chris and Eric Miller, a pair of “live wires” that make  her thankful breathing is an automatic response because she had no time to think about it, or anything else today.  She quips that if the two adages “Only the good die young” and “There’s no rest for the wicked” are true, she should be good and healthy until she’s 100 or so.

She hates to disappoint him, but she’s still working at FS. She’s quite disappointed herself, but since he disapproved of her working in a defense plant and he doesn’t want her to become a Cadet Nurse, she’s rather stuck. She asks if he’d mind if she signed up as first baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers. (She’ll await his approval before she applies.) Then she comments how influential he’s been keeping her living a sheltered life, even from half way around the world. I wonder if that’s a gentle dig at his bossiness. She suggests that if she gets into an even deeper rut at the store than she is already, he will be to blame.

She’s tired (which is not news). She loves him – also not news. His latest four letters were “super deluxe” and she will answer them as soon as she can. P.S., she still loves him.

Here’s a heads up. The time Dart warned would be coming soon – the period when he couldn’t write – is here. There are no letters coming from him for the next four days, but Dot writes a couple during that time.