From Dart comes another slightly distracted letter with more details about daily life at Navy boot camp.  He is particularly unenthusiastic about beans for breakfast.

Since this letter is written before he has received any mail at camp, he has nothing to respond to from Dot’s letters to him.

From Dot comes a typically chatty letter about life at Andrews.  She’s a little less reserved about letting Dart know she likes him and misses him.

My favorite passage is “How’s the place been treating you these days?  Hope they haven’t worked you too hard. I think if they worked any of what little there is of you off, you’d be ‘Just a Memory.'” Let’s face it, the man was skinny!

How hard it must have been for these two people to keep thinking of things to write nearly every day. I mean, they barely knew each other, and there has been a period of a few days with no letters being received on either end. I guess this was good practice for that time in the future when mail would not catch up with them for weeks. Personally, I am very glad they kept up the correspondence even when they didn’t have much to say.

Dot is already daydreaming about the day Dart gets his post-training leave. She imagines it will be around the 15th of December so that they will have about a week to see each other before she returns to Connecticut for the holidays. It’s hard to guess which one of these kids is more infatuated with the other, but they both seem to be in pretty deep after a few short weeks.

Dot’s mother is returning home on the night train this evening. I think a certain young lady will feel mighty lonesome over the next few weeks, with both her her family and her fella far, far away.

Dart’s letter tells of finally receiving two letters in his first mail call. (One from Dot, the other from his mother.) He swings back and forth throughout the letter between a wistful homesick tone and painting a more detailed picture of a “gob’s” life.  My favorite passage is “The worst thing about getting letters from friends is that the very letters you wait for are the ones which make you the most homesick.” He thanks Dot for the picture she sent and adds “I just sat and looked at it for a long time before I even started to read your letter.  Keep on writing letters like that and keep a sailor proud and happy.”

As he shares some of the daily happenings in his barracks, I can just see Dot drinking in all the details. I know she wants to be able to picture exactly where he is and what his days are like.

He signs off with “Love, (and some X’s, too).”

Now it’s Dot’s turn to be happy about receiving a letter. She compliments him on his obvious leadership ability.

I love her little story about finally having the courage to break the wishbone that her sister had sent to her via their mother.  This practical, sensible girl is surprisingly superstitious about a the power of a wishbone. She is nervous her roommate will get the wish. Phew! Dot wins! She doesn’t reveal what her wish was, but I suspect it had something to do with a certain young “sea-scout.” I wonder if Mom remembers all these years later what she wished for that day.

More tales about dorm life follow. My favorite is the one about her and her roommate trying to write letters in their room, but they are constantly being interrupted. Then, when people leave, no one closes the door. Finally, these self-professed “lazy seniors” (Dot and the roomie) start throwing shoes at the door rather than getting up to close it.

Dot encloses a pack of gum for Dart and promises to make him some fudge when he’s home for Christmas. It’s my guess that her talk of being together at Christmas was far sweeter to Dart than any gum or fudge could ever be!

Time and again as I read these letters, I am grateful for the permanence of the written word. Across great distance and time, these letters will be read and reread, combed for nuance and detail, searched for deeper meaning and cherished for the mere fact that the pages were once held by hands that are so terribly missed. You can’t do that with a phone call!

We open with a very short letter from Dart, which apparently contained a small token, left over from his first GI haircut. In his own words, “I’m better dressed now, but I look and feel naked.   … There isn’t enough hair left on my head for anyone to grab with a pair of tweezers.”

He has been recruited by the Chief to do the special assignment of stenciling everyone’s belongings – a task that will take a week and will be done on his “own” time.  He warns her his letters will be shorter for awhile.

His P. S. Reveals that sailors are not allowed to put S. W. A. K. on the outside of an envelope, so he put it on the inside.

Do kids these days know what S.W. A. K. means? Do they know what an envelope is?

In Dot’s letter of the day. she’s a little more open with the compliments than usual, but apparently doesn’t want to wade in too deep. After lavishing high praise on Dart by telling him about the raves he got from all the girls at Andrews, she quips “So, you see, you make a pretty good 1st impression, anyway. (Ouch!)”

Dot chastises Dart mildly for all his references to his “messy” letters, reminding him “What I look for in a letter isn’t the handwriting, I assure you!”

She tells an amusing story about an episode at dinner and reminds him to send another picture of himself (“Just a hint – there’s no limit as to what size picture we can have on our dresser.”) My favorite part is when she is commenting on his use of Case stationary. “I hate to be reminded of a school that didn’t have the sense to keep a good man once they had him.”

She signs off with an atypical “Loads of Love, Dot.”

There’s another letter from Dot written later that day, but since she did not write on the 10th of November, I’ll save it for tomorrow.