Well, Dot and Dart are now as far apart as it’s possible to be with both of them still in the USA. He arrived today at Treasure Island, off shore from San Francisco.

He describes his new home, once the site of the World’s Fair, as the busiest and most war-like place he’s seen so far. Although some of the old World’s Fair buildings are being used by the Navy, everything is painted an Army olive drab. There are airplanes of every size and type passing overhead and the bay is filled with ships of every description. He’s not allowed to say much more about what goes on there, but he can talk about the weather.

“I don’t think such a heck of a lot of California’s sunny weather. Today’s been sunny enough, but the island is cold and windy all the time. One consolation to the cold is that no whites are worn, saving much time and energy in washing.” I’m sure it would get mighty tiresome washing all those white uniforms by hand to the satisfaction of the officers.

He has no complaints about the setup. There is a very liberal liberty policy (6PM to 7AM, two days out of three, and every third weekend.) K.P. and guard duty are kept to a minimum. It almost seems too easy to Dart, who says he’s going to be very careful because he wants to go as far as possible in the Navy. That’s a surprisingly ambitious statement for Dart to make about his military service.

“It’ll be a tough grind, so I’ll have to keep my nose clean and placed tightly against that mythical grindstone. That lovely liberty will probably be passed up. The time’s valuable now and the money will be valuable in case I manage to survive and ever want to buy a house, a car, or something of the like. As I’ve hinted before, you figure very prominently in those hopes and dream.”

Wow! That paragraph packs a lot of sentiment into a few words. He wants to be successful in his studies. He needs to save money for the future. He envisions Dot as part of that future. But mostly, it is a not-so-oblique affirmation that he is going into battle and may not survive. Of course that’s a constant reality during this time, but Dart’s statement demonstrates that, while it is seldom voiced, the thought is always there. It must have sent a jolt through Dot’s heart to read those words.

He writes a bit about what a perfect trip he had across the country and about witnessing the sunrise over the Sierra Nevada mountains while on early morning guard duty aboard the train.  He sends Dot his new address and heads off to bed to dream about his lovely lady.

Here’s another one-page letter from Dot. She misses him and has a hard time wrapping her head around the fact that he was with her at the beach less than two weeks ago, and now he is a continent away. She consoles herself with thoughts about when he’ll be with her on the beach again.

The only news she has to report from her side of the world is that she loves him, which is not news at all.

She was so thrilled to get a letter from him today that her fingers could hardly get it open. Because she assumes he’s at his destination by now, she wishes him the best of luck in all that he’s doing, rather than a continued pleasant journey.

This is the first day in several that we have a letter from both Dot and Dart. We’ll start, as usual, with Dart’s.

In his first letter of the day, he reports that mail call was a disappointment. Nothing from home or Greenwich. He calculates that tomorrow or Friday he should begin to receive mail from Dot.

He’s thinking of taking in some of the sights of either ‘Frisco or Oakland this evening, if his headache subsides. He didn’t get much sleep last night, substituting thoughts of Dot instead. Who’s children was she watching? What was she doing at that moment? He mentally took several little trips around Greenwich with her.

He sums up his mood in one word – lonesome.

His next letter written later the same evening has a jollier tone. He had just received an airmail letter from home with the news that his mother had already mailed Dot’s photo and some letters from her. He tells her he awaits their arrival with fluttering heart.

You can tell he’s feeling more upbeat because he’s inspired to write a lovely description of the bay that surrounds Treasure Island, summing it up with “the whole scene looks like something from National Geographic.”

Always in sync with Dart, Dottie also writes two letters today. Her first is a very quick note, dashed off in five minutes before she scurried off to work. She babysat last night, leaving no time to write, but she promises a more complete job when she gets home this evening.

In the second letter, Dot opens with high praise of Dart’s letter of July 12. That’s the one when he provides such a wonderful description of the western states, as seen from his train window. Says Dot, “If I never travel in my life, I think I will, never-the-less have a very realistic idea of what the west is like. You have the best descriptive vocabulary I have ever seen and you certainly did a great job of giving me a word picture of the country you were passing through.” Then she asked the question he must have heard countless times – “Did you ever think of writing any travelogues?”

Having received none of his letters from Treasure Island yet, she asks about his classes and activities at his new base. She also wonders if he might see some of San Francisco without spending much money. “It seems to me there ought to be places open to service men (especially such a nice one) which wouldn’t set you back much, if any.”

She acknowledges how difficult it is to save money, admitting she’s saved only $70 since returning to Greenwich to work full time. “I’ll never get to college if I don’t go at it more seriously than that.”

In other “news” – his airmail letter arrived before the ones he sent later, but she thinks if they write regularly, it isn’t worth the extra cost. The weather is getting cooler in Greenwich and she hopes that doesn’t signal the end of summer already. She wonders if he has received the letter containing the photographs she sent to his Cleveland address. “I don’t think we look embarrassed, do you? I think they look quite natural, considering.”

On her half-day off tomorrow, she plans to get to the beach. She is determined to get a tan because she hates walking around looking so pale.

In spite of her intentions of writing a nice long letter, her eyelids are getting heavy and she must turn in.

Dart’s letter today is one of his long, newsy varieties, describing  more about his immediate surroundings and activities. He’s housed in a gigantic building along with 3,000 other men. It was once used to display whole trains during the Golden Gate Exposition.

He tells Dot about the fire drill they had last night. When the fog horns and bells start going off, everybody “falls out” to their assigned duty stations. Dart’s is at the nozzle end of a fire hose in his barracks. Marine corpsmen carrying tommy guns form a line around the buildings and fire trucks arrive from all directions.

He talks about the water shortage on Treasure Island. The advantage for Dart is that his laundry duties have been sidelined to conserve water. The folks in Oakland and San Francisco fear a typhoid outbreak because one of the main water supply lines may have been compromised by the ammunition explosion a few nights ago.

Today was the first “almost warm” day in the week since Dart arrived. Talking about the weather set him on a vivid description of a fog bank rolling in across the bay between Alcatraz and the majestic Golden Gate Bridge. He described the engineering marvels of the various bridges that connect two great California cities to each other, and Treasure Island to both.

Tonight Dart must stay on the island because he has a duty assignment, but last night he went into SF and purchased one of the last seats for the new Bing Crosby film Going My Way. He had high praise for the film and it’s lead actor.

He reports that classes here are faintly reminiscent of those at Case. Although his current math classes are quite elementary, the electricity course work reminds him a bit of some of the physics he took earlier. “But the main thing that reminds me of Case is the stack of books we lug around and the fellows sleeping in class.”

He describes his electricity teacher in some detail. He’s an excellent instructor, but he has a pronounced stutter. “It’s terrible to hear him try to say ‘retentivity’ or ‘electro-magnetic force.’ When he gets excited it’s even worse. He also says ‘youse’ and ‘that there book,’ but he’s a great teacher, nonetheless.”

The men in Dart’s class are all pretty nice guys. Dart is the second youngest of 25, and one of only four who is not married. Although Dart is disappointed by how unfaithful some of them are to their wives, they’re a good group. Most of them drink and carouse more than Dart, so they’ve given him the nickname of “Gramps.” He doesn’t seem to mind at all.

He reports that he is still awaiting her letters.

Dot begins her letter by forgiving Dart for not writing. It’s been two days since she received anything from him, but she’s sympathetic. She admits to having 20 letters unanswered from friends and relatives and marvels at how time speeds by so quickly.

She finally got a little color at the beach today. She also “invested” in a green,all-wool suit from Franklin Simon, with her mother’s approval. She has come to the conclusion that if one wants to build up a savings account, it is best if one does not work in the ready-to-wear department of a nice department store. Too much temptation, and “unfortunately, my eyes are bigger than my pocketbook.”

Wow! What a letter from Dart! This is one that defines for others who he knows himself to be. The best way to tell about it is with his own words, so I will excerpt some. Still, it is worth a full read in his own hand.

“Once in a while, when I am particularly homesick, my ideas and ideals become vulnerable to attack from within my own mind and from others. But then, all it takes is a little urging from ‘the boys’ and my defenses go up again.”

He goes on to say that his mates were pulling the “Grandpa Peterson” gag again and calling him the “old maid.” They say I haven’t the guts to make a pick-up, to go the limits with some slut from the sidewalk, but I maintain it takes more strength, more moral courage to stay the straight, unlighted path than to go berserk among the lurid, fallen human beings. People are inclined to take the easiest path, so perhaps the fact that I can find so few people like myself points to the fact that perhaps I’m much stronger than they are.”

“Yes, Dot, I think it is worth it all. Having yielded to earthly temptations, I could never again feel worthy of the love of a girl like you. …If you’ll wait, so can I. We’re still young, and there are many formative years ahead of us in which to make momentous decisions. My only hope is that we don’t burn out our love before we can do great things with it.”

What can you say to that? My mother once told me that throughout their long separation, many people tried to convince her that she was a fool to trust Dad’s fidelity. They told her that men always cheat. They told her he’d surely be picking up girls in every port. They said she was naïve. But she always knew he was being true to her while he was away, and that he would remain true throughout his life.

Dot writes this letter early on a Sunday morning while still lying in bed, listening to “Tales of a Vienna Wood.” She’s disappointed at how long it takes for Dart’s letters to get to her from the west coast.

Referring to his hearty endorsement of Fitch’s soap for getting the yellow out of his white stripes, she asks if he receives a commission on his “sales.” She tells him that the Chamberlain family is angry at Fitch’s because a couple of years ago they had a jingle contest with the prize of a 17-jewel watch. Her mother, the family poet entered a delightful little ditty. The contest required that the jingle tell, in four lines, set to the tune of the Fitch’s jingle, why the writer needed a new watch. Ruth had recently lost her mother’s watch in a canoeing mishap, and so she wrote:

Summer time; a girl, a watch,

A lake, a tipped canoe.

The girl was saved, but for the watch

Looks hopefully to you.

Her only prize was a bottle of shampoo, so the family is holding a grudge.

Dot again admires Dart’s gift for description, saying that San Francisco sounds like quite a city. “No chance to get bored but plenty of chance to get drunk. Next time you go sightseeing, better you should take a body guard along.”

She reports that El is spending the weekend at State College to visit Don. While they might be having a rip snortin’ good time, nothing can compare to Dot and Dart’s weekend of just three weeks ago. In fact, Dot believes that may prove to be the best time either of them have for a long time to come.

She tells Dart she has accepted a regular summer job every Sunday, caring for two little boys, aged two years and two months. She says that every time she says yes to one of these babysitting jobs, she immediately wishes she had said no. Nothing to do now but do it. “It’ll keep me out of mischief and maybe earn me a few extra dollars.”

Before closing the letter, she reminds Dart to work hard, have fun and come home as soon as possible. She reminds him of the senior graduation prom in February.

Here’s a short but entertaining letter from Dart. He begins by saying there was no news and proceeds to tell Dot all his news.

He received a note from Fred today saying he had boarded a train on Saturday headed for San Francisco! Dart figures he’ll be in town by tomorrow. He’s also learned that his buddy Angel is permanently stationed in the city at an Army Air base. I hope he gets to see his friends while he is there. Wouldn’t that be a nice perk, being so far from home.

He had telephone watch recently. He reports that it’s a nice job, and like many of the nice jobs at the base, it is often assigned to Fire Control students. He looks forward to working it again.

Then he tells Dot a rather alarming story. The other day he was in class, hunched over his desk when a guy who was working on the framework of his building fell through the ceiling directly over Dart’s desk! “If the man hadn’t swung on the rafters as he passed through the ceiling he would have landed right on my hunched form. As it was, I got a bruised elbow and plaster in my hair and all over my blues. He was only shaken up and as we helped him out of the room, we asked him to ‘drop’ in on us again sometime.”

He ends his letter with a P. S. “There was news after all!”

Here’s a hurried note from Dot.

There’s just a one-pager from Dart’s part of the world today.

He has only minutes to touch bases with Dot and get a note off to his mother before going out on liberty. His main task tonight is to try and find out where Fred is in San Francisco.

Last night he helped a few of the boys study for a test so there was no time to write then either. He assures her that this letter may be brief but his love for her is anything but.

Here’s a longer letter from Dot.

Her mailman arrived today bearing two letters from Dart and a big smile. “I guess he didn’t forget you after all,” he said.

She says she was so happy to receive them, but now she is worried. She asks him what the terrible dream was about. If she doesn’t know, how can she prevent it?

She says that his classmate’s name may be Peterson and he may be married to a Dot, but that’s where the comparison must end. The Peterson she knows is the best of the best, so there’s no pint in comparing them.

She discusses why the guys may tease Dart by calling him Grandpa.  She believes they may be jealous because they don’t have the moral fiber to live up to his ideals. She says she could name 100s of people who think Dart is perfect just the way he is. There are probably 1000s but Dot hasn’t met them yet.

On the subject of worthiness, Dot must insist it is she that is not worthy of him. “You’ll have to face it sometime, I haven’t 1/4 the brain you have, and what I do have I don’t use. I’m lazy and foolish and a million other wrong things and up to two weeks ago, I bit my finger nails. So there, your ‘golden illusion about me has burst.” I cannot attest to the nail-biting, but I can assure you she was neither dumb, lazy or foolish ever!

She goes on to say that it’s up to him how long their love lasts. She knows that for her it will last forever. She asks him to be honest with her if he ever finds he feels differently. In fact, she thinks there is never a reason they should not be honest with each other.

This letter has become more serious than she had intended, she says. She prefers the more carefree, happy variety, but she believes these serious ones are good every once in awhile.

With full intentions of putting her half day off to good use, she must go clean her room. Before doing so, she tells him she has bought the white shoes needed for graduation still six months away. Speaking of which, she hopes he’ll be able to attend. (I suspect the US Navy may have other plans for him.)