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.

While at sea, Dart begins, “Right in the beginning I must tell you that I’m too much in love, to utterly homesick for you, to write a decent letter at all. Perhaps it would be better if I could lay this aside until such a time as I can write a letter which contains a fair share of each wit, news, conversation in general, and love. Now I have no witty sayings, no news to relate, altogether too much longing for you, and a strong desire for real conversation with audible words instead of these stale scribbling on paper.” This paragraph signals a beautiful letter ahead.

He continues, “If I’d done the right thing, I wouldn’t have mentioned your wanting to join the WAVEs in any letters but the ones to you. But I hopelessly bungled my hand and protested as violently to Mother and Dad as I did to you. I protested even more violently to Fred, for he knows I cuss plenty and is not averse to hearing, and lending a sympathetic mind to my frequent profane protestations. He must believe, when he receives my last letter that I’ve completely lost my head. As a matter of fact, I did.”

“I lost it a year and a half ago when I met the most charming and lovely young lady ever to capture the heart of a sailor and his family. I’ve been out of my mind, out of this world over you ever since. Perhaps these events of recent date have brought me back to earth for the first time since then. If so, I find that it’s as easy for one walking on earth, or even in the deep pits of despair and dejection, to be in love, as it is for one whose footsteps are stilled in the deep cottony softness of cloud-like paths.”

“And speaking of walking on clouds, I’ve done another interior sketch of our castle in the sky. Also made dealings for a nice half acre of alto-stratus, near where Cumulus Avenue crosses Nimbus Road. I don’t know yet how to dig foundations in alto-stratus, but maybe we won’t need a basement in our cloud home. (Might need a cloud mower, though.)”

He goes on to tell Dot that he showed his house sketches to more people. There was the shipmate who knows construction and believes it could be built for $8,000. Another guy with some knowledge of the building trade estimates about the same, built, insulated and landscaped. Both these men gave Dart some good pointers and lots of encouragement. One of them sent Dart’s plans to his wife, saying he likes them better than any of the 12 sets they’ve been working on. He told Dart that when they are complete, maybe Dart could get these designs published.

Fired up by such an enthusiastic response to his ideas, he set out to draw the first floor to scale. Starting with the living and dining rooms, and the bedrooms, he worked toward the back of the house. He found the rooms don’t fit. Did Dot ever see a kitchen that was three feet wide? That might work for skinny Dart, but he doubts most people would be comfortable. If she could learn to move about in a kitchen that small, their problem would be solved!

He tells her about engaging in a long-standing Navy tradition on the deck tonight. That’s the tradition of complaining about the Navy. To Dart’s mind, most of the complaints were justified and seemed to follow a theme: Why the heck are we using all these ships to fight over a bunch of insignificant little islands that have nothing we want on them, and for which the US has no use. Even if we win them, we’ll probably just give them back to Japan after the war, anyway. If we’re not fighting over the islands, then it must be the water. Lord knows there’s plenty of that to go around. So, this whole war is senseless and we should all go home. Dart’s take on the subject? “I, personally, don’t even see why we’re fighting over the water. You can’t breathe it, walk on it, or eat it. It’s too salty to drink and to deep to wade in.”

He tells Dot about one of the best books he’s ever read, written by the guy who wrote “Magnificent Obsession” and “Dr. Hudson’s Secret Journal,” Lloyd C. Douglas. It’s called “The Robe,” and he highly recommends it to Dot.

In response to her wish that he had made a recording of his voice before leaving the Sates, he tells her that he was often tempted, but the lines were always too long. Anyway, he would have been so nervous that his voice would have sounded unnatural. “It’s very much natural for me to be saying sweet things to you, though.  I’m glad I saved ’em all for you, Darling. I felt as if I’d been saying them to you all my life and I want to keep them, just for you, for the rest of it.”

Dot explains that she didn’t write last night because she was in a terrible mood and didn’t want her letter to reflect that. Then today, she got a wonderful letter from Dart, and her mood has greatly improved. Even better, she was assigned to the packing room at work, so she has time to answer that letter while she works.

Now it’s her turn to recall her first trip into New York City. She earned it by getting As in her three worst subjects of math, geography and spelling. She was 12 years old and her 20-year old sister Harriet escorted her into the City. That was Dot’s first ride on a train and when they got there, Harriet made sure that before the day was out, she would get to ride on every form of transportation available in NYC. They spent the day on subways, double deck buses, taxis, and even the Staten Island ferry. They toured Radio City and the Chrysler Building and visited the Statue of Liberty. They didn’t get home until 1:00 AM. Her Dad was angry when they arrived, but changed his tune as soon as he realized how much fun they’d had.

Yesterday, Dot got two job offers. One is for a new store similar to FS, but closer to her house and paying more money. The other is for a company called The Toy Mart. It sells new and second hand toys. She would be the only employee other than the owner, which would get her out of the situation she’s in now where she has three bosses who don’t talk to each other and who all expect her to be on call for them alone. Both offers are worth considering, so she’ll discuss them with her family tonight. She hopes that a new job would get her out of this rut she’s been in, even if she can’t join a branch of the service.

By the way, Gordon shares Dart’s opinion about her joining the WAVEs, so she says that’s the end of the discussion. She certainly couldn’t go against the wishes of her two favorite servicemen.

She guesses that neither of them will ever forget their meeting at Grand Central Station when Dart came to visit her. She was so nervous and had gotten no sleep the night before. She was out of bed before the alarm went off at 5:30. Dart was the last sailor off the train and Dot didn’t think her knees would hold out. She didn’t know how to act with this boy she liked so much, but whom she’d only seen three times in her life. When she asked El, her sister sort of winked and said, “Don’t worry about it. He may not be a Marine, but something tells me before too long he’ll have the situation well in hand.” It turned out that he was almost as nervous as Dot was! “Cheer up! Next time you see me I’m gonna talk so much you won’t get a word in edgewise.”

She turns serious then , when she tells Dart she doesn’t blame him for thinking about the “ifs,” but she begs him not to write about them. “I’m sure God doesn’t want us to anticipate sadness and heartache. Of course you’ll come home. They need a few million men like you to keep this cockeyed world on it’s feet, if it ever gets on its feet. ” Right now, her only prayer is that he and Gordon and millions of others get home to a peaceful life NOW! If every fighting man – German, English, Japanese, French or any other nationality – would simply refuse to fight any more, there’d be an instant end to the war. Then all these men could come home and do what men are supposed to do – teach their children and make a better world for them. “The grass on the other side of the fence may look greener, but if everyone keeps bombing cities, there won’t be any grass on either side of the fence, ever again.”

“There, now you have my opinion, better known as How Chamberlain Would Run the World If Given Half a Chance.

She enclosed a small photo clipped from a magazine of the newest Hollywood starlet, Lauren Bacall. She tells Dart she’ll look for a better picture of her – one where she’s not wearing a long-sleeved winter dress, if he knows what she means.

No letters tomorrow, but I’ll be back on the 29th with one from Dart.