Here’s a nice one from Dart, overjoyed, as usual by the long letters from Dot. He again tries to caution her about neglecting her studies in favor of writing to him “I really do appreciate those letters and your consideration of me, but are you sure it’s worth it? Personally, I think it is worth it, for both of us, but don’t neglect the schoolwork. The old man has spoken and will now retire to his mossy cave.”

He was over the moon about switching to a soft diet today. Not only was he given a nice variety of food for lunch, but the change of diet indicates he’s very close to having the bustle removed from his back. He talks about how he hopes to progress through the long recovery from his surgery. If the incision heals and if it doesn’t break open and if they got all the cyst out and if … then he MIGHT be home for Christmas.

His tone turns poignant as he talks about how unlikely it is that he could escort Dot to her winter formal in December. He wants her to go without him and have a great time, but “Oh, how I want to be there!”

He takes a break for a little nap and continues where he left off. He tells her he approves, of course, of her correspondence list, and confesses that he has received several letters from a Catholic girl he dated a lot in high school because she was “a lot nicer than most of the Protestant girls” he knew then. But he’d always hoped he’d meet someone special, and now he has!

In a funny paragraph, Dart reveals he would be a colorful individual if he let his whiskers grow. In contrast to his dark hair, his mustache is reddish-yellow and his sideburns are pure red. He shaved it off after a week, at the request of his nurse.

He takes a guess at Dot’s most recent puzzle, C. S. O. B. W. as “Chamberlain sends own best wishes.” Then, referring to her suggestion that someday she might actually write something really hot, he quipped “If you send something really hot, I probably won’t recognize it!” That line sounds like something my own husband would say. He never could figure out when someone was coming on to him!

He writes a few jokes he’s picked up from the guys on the ward and then announces he’s throwing in the towel. After her lengthy list of Greenwich celebrities she included in a recent letter, he feels “like a piker.” Of course, the only ones he’s interested in are the Chamberlains.

The exhausted sailor finally wraps up this letter he began at 10:30 AM at 6:15 PM and bids Dot good night.

Dot sent a quick postcard from her friend’s house, followed by a nice long letter. She tells an embarrassing story of starting to read his latest letter to her friends at lunch when the headmaster came by and asked if he could read it, too. She blushed, the headmaster blushed and then walked away. Later, he said he’d really like to read it, but he didn’t push it, so she didn’t offer. “Better be careful, tho’,” she cautioned. “You never can tell who may read your letters!”

She apologized that she had no snapshots of herself, but film around her campus is as rare as “A’s on my report card.” That’s another big contrast with today’s world. Who doesn’t have instant access to “snapshots” of themselves? Film? What’s that?

She’s glad it’s settled about the name thing. She agrees that he can call her anything he likes. She then told that a classmate asked her recently if Dart’s name was actually “Dartmouth.” Dot replied sarcastically that his real name was “Yale.” (Her father’s alma mater.)

She talks about her dad and her brother Gordon with his active sense of humor. She talks about her love of spaghetti. and she mentions how impressed she is that Dart can tell a train simply from it’s whistle.  She writes “When I was younger, I had a yen to ride a train, but unless I change my route from New York to Cleveland, I may never want to ride one again. Why, I’ve made that trip so many times that the cows along the way moo at me when I go by.”

She expressed her fear that she won’t repeat her B in chemistry after her pre-Thanksgiving exam. And she expresses remorse and embarrassment for not writing to his mother yet to thank her for sending the pictures of Dart. She vows she will write to her today, because the snapshots mean so much to her.

In response to Dart’s query about what she wants for Christmas, she replies “An A in chemistry, $500, and you!”

In closing, she wishes him a happy Thanksgiving, in spite of the fact that he’s in a hospital. At least, she says, you can be thankful it’s an American hospital and that you’re getting good care.” That rosy perspective is a trait Dot carries with her even now – most of the time. Just last week, as she lay on her bedroom floor for 11 hours because she had fallen and could not get up, she was thinking “Dot, those people in the Phillipines typhoon would be grateful to be here on this floor where it’s safe and warm and dry. Quite your bitchin’.”

This long letter from Dart has several fine passages. He related that when folks ask whether his name is short for Dartmouth, he has also used the “No, “Yale” retort. “Slays ’em without bloodshed,” he quipped.

There’s a long descriptive section about the terrors of chemistry exams. “You take a peek at the exam…growing bolder, you read a question. Little green things start running up and down your spine. You break out in a tingling, cold sweat. Your pencil wants to write one thing and YOU want it another way, so you compromise on the wrong answer. It happens every time.”

He continues the old discussion about upside down stamps and the meaning of the shorthand symbol Dart attempts at the end of many letters (Remember, if you will, that they both mean “I love you,” but neither of our correspondents has actually admitted that.) “I hope with all my heart that we know what we’re talking about with our stamps and shorthand. It’s a wonderful feeling, too. I like it.”

A little more chat about other letters he’s received – and then he writes “Please keep those swell letters coming, Dot, dear. It means so much to me now.”

He ends with a final retort, “Whenever my brother goes out, Mom says ‘Be good and have fun.’ Burke always answers, ‘Make up your mind!’ I hope you don’t feel that way too!”

Dot writes to Dart from her friend Nancy’s house in Kent. By the way, Dot and Nancy are still in touch after all these years and Nancy still lives in Kent OH.

Dot reports that he was awakened very early yesterday by her friend waving two letters in her face. She noticed right away that Dart had used a different pen to write them with. The she reports that Nancy and a girl from Puerto Rico went to the movies to see “Heaven Can Wait,” which Dot loved, as she seems to love all movies.

She confesses that she had never heard of the Catholic girl Dart spoke of until he mentioned her, but she told him she doesn’t mind at all if he writes to her. She then confesses that, contrary to all her hints about knowing everything about him, she really doesn’t know anything except what he has told her.

She complements Dart on his good guess about her recent code – Chamberlain Sends Own Best Wishes, but clues him in on the real meaning of “Camay- soap of beautiful women.” What’s with all these homages she pays to Madison Avenue advertising slogans?

She talks about a teen club she and her friends visited the night before. It sounds like the kind of place today’s kids would enjoy if they were looking for tame entertainment- an old warehouse they had cleaned up, added ping-pong tables and a soda bar. I wonder where they held their rave parties back then?

True to the woman I would come to know as Mom, Dot goes into great enthusiastic detail about the Army-Navy football game she’s listening to on the radio. She is screaming for Navy and practically runs off the page when her team breaks a 0-0 tie. Little does she know at that point in her life that Dart didn’t know a touchdown from a crochet hook – nor would he ever. Dot was always the “jock” in the family.

She closes with a sweet comment. “We might go see ‘The Sky’s the Limit.’ You must admit I like the ‘higher’ type movie. ‘Heaven Can Wait’ and now this.  Maybe it’s just cuz I’m walking around with my head in the clouds.”

The weeks in a hospital bed are taking a toll on our hero. His letter, while containing some humorous bits, is a little cynical and bored. But he never misses a chance say how much he appreciates Dot’s letters.

He writes of finally having a radio for a few hours, which a nurse borrowed to use on the ward. There was a 15 minute jive program that had the “up” patients dancing for the entertainment of their fellow “inmates.” Dart, never much of a dancer himself, loved watching these guys do their “sick-bay shuffle.”

He fills in a couple of pages with corny one-liners, probably heard on the ward, and some silly conversation about Dot eating spaghetti until it ran out her ears.  He promised to practice his shorthand and send her his practice sheet, filled with the only symbol he knows (or cares to know, most likely.)

The final page might shed some light on his flippant and somewhat impersonal note. “Right now I’m passing through the most dangerous and painful stage of the operation. So if my letters are brief, please understand.”

Dot wrote two letters today – one from her friend’s house, and one back at school. She told about going with her friends to see a double feature of “Alaskan Highway” and “Melody Parade.”  After a midnight burger at the local diner, they returned to see the late, late show of “The Sky’s the Limit.” Obviously, movies weren’t ten bucks a pop in those days, so poor co-eds could see three in a single night!

She also told of listening to a new radio station in Kent where the announcer invited listeners to call in and request a song. She ran downstairs to the only phone in the house (!) and called the number. She said she was Dottie Chamberlain from Connecticut, asking him to play “String of Pearls.” Then she ran back upstairs to hear the announcer say “We just had a call come into the studio requesting “String of Pearls.” It came from Dottie Chamberlain from Kentucky.” Even though he’d flubbed her state, she was thrilled to hear her name on the radio.

She wrapped up the first letter by saying she was heading back to school and was sorry for such a nothing letter.

When she got back to school, there was a Great Lakes banner waiting for her. I guess she meant something signifying the Naval base where Dart is posted. Then she praised the Navy/Notre Dame game on Saturday night, saying “Oh, you’re just wonderful! You Navy men, I mean.”

She again apologized for a poor excuse for a letter, saying that although she looked forward to writing to him every day, she was afraid he’d get bored by her trivial notes, which was the last thing she wanted. On the blank back page of the paper, she wrote the large shorthand symbol, followed by a small period (dot).

Much of this letter from Dart was simply commenting on parts of Dot’s most recent to him. Still, it seems they are both beginning to add familiar little intimacies with greater frequency.

Referring to Dot’s reference to her 17-1/2 years as being “just a baby,” Dart told her to stop talking like that. He compares her maturity to some 19-year olds he’s been out with and she scores high. “Furthermore,” he continues, “you’re much nicer than most of them. I’ve known several gals who were much too fast, or too affected, for my simpler tastes. Better stop there before I get too deep.”

In another instance, he referred to Dot’s comment that he could write to any girls he wanted because she didn’t really have any “priority” on him. “I’m not so sure about that priority you say you don’t have on me. I wouldn’t mind it if you had one.”

He hints that he won’t be out of the hospital for a long time, but finds some relief in not having to march for hours in the Chicago December.  And he reports that the library crew came by to ask if there were any particular books he wanted. He answered that he’d really like to read something by James Thurber. When they returned, they brought two – one by Carolyn Wells and another by Ruth McKenny. Huh?

He throws in a plaintive “Gee, I want to see you again,” before signing off.

As Dart’s ardor is finding expression, Dot seems to be putting on the brakes a bit. “Please don’t take what I put on the outside of the envelope and elsewhere too seriously. I think and hope I mean it, but as I said before, I’m too young… I’ve seen so many girls get hurt by such things, that I’m gonna kinda take it easy. I will tell you this, tho’ – I’ve never felt quite the way toward any other boy as I do about you.”

She chastises him for losing weight and urges him to regain it and more. “Otherwise I’ll be singing ‘He would have been so nice to come home to.'”

She also tells him there’ll be no more apologies about his”griping.” She doesn’t think he overdoes it, and besides, she can think of no one who has a greater reason to gripe than he.

She tells him she’s nursing a cold and a cough and closes with  “All my love -(I think), Dot.