Dart received Dot’s answer to his “hefty” letter today and it spawned lots of one-sided discussion. (I trust her side will come in a return letter.)

Both her letter and Dart’s own misgivings give the impression that they might expect some opposition to their plan from one or both sets of parents. If that’s the case, Dart proposes that they tread carefully, because to marry against the wishes or advice of their beloved parents would be folly. He wouldn’t blame her parents one bit if they disapproved of an earlier marriage, “for being parents who’ve raised you admirably and provided well for you for 20 years,  they have every right and reason to make sure that you’ll be well-provided for when you marry.”

He goes on to say that he’d always thought Dot would work during the first two or three years of their marriage to make it easier for them to provide for the children when they came along. He will likely be making low wages for the first several years and a second income would be vital.”The early years will be lean, for sure, and I am grateful that I have picked a girl who understands that and is intending to help out in that period.”

Then he dons his professor hat and begins to speak about preventative measures for controlling the start of their family. There’s natural, which doesn’t always work 100%, especially if the woman’s cycles are irregular. There are artificial means, which some people have religious objections to, although he doesn’t think either he or Dot does. The religious objection seems to come from the fact that they make “sinful” acts easier and safer. There’s much to learn and discuss on this topic, and now is not the time, but it should happen prior to marriage. “You can stop blushing now,” Dart tells Dot.

“All the time I was at sea I wondered how we’d ever get things talked over and thrashed out.  There doesn’t seem to be much thrashing, for we’re in agreement over so many principles.  It’s a ceaseless wonder to me that we’ve found in each other prospective life companions who feel so strongly the same way about so many things. …I’ve wondered at times why we didn’t have discussions like we’ve had since I returned, and now we suddenly realize that we’re in the midst of the ‘dreaded’ discussions, and we love it!”

He mentions that last night he wrote to Western Reserve  to find out what might be needed for him to begin classes there this summer. He hopes to have the application form completed before he leaves the West Coast.

Dart writes a cryptic page about some sport that Life magazine covered this month in a sly fashion. He predicts the magazine will get plenty of mail protesting their treatment of the sport. Still, it’s one he and Dot have talked about trying. He thinks they should especially try the little buoy idea. I hold out hope that Dot will shed some light on this subject in her response.

Missing her all the time, he misses her even more when there are heady discussions to be had. He has one more big question of “morals, ethics and emotion,” that he wants to raise with her at some future time. For now, he wishes he could seal this letter with a real kiss and a night-long embrace.

#     #     #

Dot’s quick letter begins with the announcement that her weekend plans have changed. Instead of going home with Joyce, she’ll go to the Peterson’s place instead. Joyce heard Bill was coming home this weekend, so she wants to devote all her attention to him, naturally. Dot is almost as excited about going to Dart’s home as she gets when she’s going to her own home.

She and her mother sent sent him a birthday box from Greenwich, which she hopes will arrive in time for his big day on the 15th. This weekend she’ll take his real birthday gift to his folks’ apartment – two classical albums that she ordered for him to start their record library.

She wrote her first theme today for her new English teacher, whom she hears is a tough, but fair grader. Also, she’s begun a countdown to Easter Sunday when she hopes she’ll be seeing Dart again – 79 days! That doesn’t seem so bad, in comparison to all the time they’ve spent apart before.

Dart was supposed to go to sick bay for a check-up this morning, but when the doctor saw he was on the list for liberty, he told Dart to do what he wanted. Maybe he can stop in and see the doc tomorrow.

He likes her resolution to attend church every Sunday. He won’t do that  until he’s out of the Navy because religious services here are not to his liking. Rather than being warming and inspiring, they’re more the ‘repent your sins, you lead a dangerous life, you may be dead tomorrow’ stuff. “Doesn’t rest at all well with men who are about to go into battle. …When I go to church, …I want to learn how to lead a good Christian life. Christianity is a warm and friendly religion, and I can’t see the use of making it a fearful one.”

In response to her comments about Foecking and Tupa, he agrees that they are unspeakably happy in their marriages. Both were as inexperienced as Dot and Dart are when they began their life together and are happy they waited. Then he writes that both men are “supposed to be going out with us.” I don’t know if that means on today’s liberty or out on the pending cruise.

Now he begins his response to her comments on his “hefty” letter. He knows exactly what she means when she writes that she feels so young and shy when speaking to his parents about such matters. He feels mature and sure of himself when he discusses things with Dot. He’s comfortable talking to his folks. But when he needs to address serious topics with her parents, he feels like a kid. How he wishes the two of them could speak to their parents together. It seems to me that they’re both anticipating more objections from their families than I think they’ll get, but they are eager for the approval of their parents. whom they love and respect so much.

If she goes to summer school and finishes at Kent in March, he’s not sure working for three months would really matter that much. He’s concerned, selfishly, that having a job for such a short time might impede her taking a honeymoon.

He closes his rather serious letter with the kind of  wonderful, loving words that Dot longs to see in every letter. “How I long for the sight of you, Dot! I want to see you in a kitchen – any kitchen but preferably our own. I want to see you in a front door. …I want to see you at a station, meeting me for the last time in uniform. I want to see you smile, and see you for that flashing moment we’re running to meet and kiss each other. I want to beam along with you as we go to church and out on dates together. Oh, my Darling, I love you.”

#     #     #

Dot is writing this clever letter from Dart’s bedroom in Cleveland, curled up on his bed. She can see that his mother’s been busy in here since she last stayed over in December. “The windows fairly glisten and the curtains have been starched so they look as clean and fresh as a spring morning. There has even been a mirror installed, which, as long as I keep from standing in front of it, doesn’t detract from the room at all.”

In spite of rainy weather tonight, his father took her and Helen to see “Captain Kidd.” It was a great movie, although Dot thinks Technicolor would have improved it 100%. She reports that it wasn’t an authentic story, but it ended the way the public wanted it to, to there are no complaints from her. “Pirate pictures seem to hold a strange fascination for me, although I don’t know why.”

She and Dart’s parents listened to records this evening, which would have been the perfect time to discuss when they should get married, but she didn’t know how to bring it up, and they didn’t. How she wishes he could be there when they discuss it. Does he think they could put it off for three or four months? No, probably not.

The bed beckons. She and Mrs. Peterson plan to shop tomorrow, she she needs to get some shut-eye. She’ll try to write a longer letter tomorrow.

Dart is unhappy that he must give Dot the news she hasn’t wanted to hear. He has a sailing date. The John R Craig will leave the Navy yard on Friday, January 18 and sail out of Charleston Harbor the following day. Their first stop is Panama and they are scheduled to reach the west coast of the US within three weeks.

Unlike wartime, he doesn’t have to hint that she may not be hearing from him for quite a while. Even though he’s not supposed to write about ship movements, even in peace time, no one really cares any more and there are no censors keeping an eye on things.

“What was the longest time you spent without a letter from me when I was out before? You surely don’t think it’ll be that long a period this time, do you?” He doesn’t mention that the waiting during wartime must have seemed far longer than waiting when she knows he’s not in harm’s way.

He probably won’t write every day while underway. “This trip will probably be as rough as they come, but it’s all in the game. I surely had my share of smooth sailing on the Haggard, so I don’t expect any on the Craig.” He’s kicking himself that he’ll be leaving without any film because he couldn’t find the size he needs in Charleston. He regrets shooting all the rolls he had, except for the Kodachrome Dot sent him, which works best in sunny climates.

He spends his precious writing time dreaming about all the things he’d like to be doing; working on his railroad, talking things over with Dot after a nice date. He’s too glum to write much more tonight. He wrote two 10-page letters last night and it’s left him flat.

He thanks her for the birthday presents of some classical recordings. It’s turning out that they may have a number of little luxuries with which to fill their house (or a couple of rooms to start.) Now they should begin planning to replace his decrepit record player with one that will do the music justice. As they attend concerts together in the future, he hopes they’ll make note of their favorite pieces so they can add them to the collection. Also, they’ll need some popular tunes as well to dance to.

“Goodnight, Dot. Gee, how I wish that I could say it (in a whisper). Can’t be too much longer, Dearest. I feel in a pleading mood tonight, but there’s nothing to plead with you about. Only the Navy. Oh yes – please don’t feel too awfully blue when the ship leaves.”

#     #     #

Dot got three letters from Dart today which probably means none tomorrow. That doesn’t bother her now, but just wait until tomorrow! She’s going to try to answer all three while most of her housemates are still at school. If she waits until evening, there are usually five or six conversations going on and her powers of concentration are no match for the distractions. “Not even when I’m writing to the person who is virtually my whole life.”

They enjoyed some beautiful spring weather last week, but it has “stepped aside to let winter back in.” The howling winter winds make quite a racket as they whip around the corners of “this weird house up on the hill.”

She reminds  him that his birthday package is from both her and her mother. They worked on it together while Dot was home and then Ruth added to it.

Looking back on how much time they wasted in their early courtship by both being so shy, she’s decided she’s glad it happened that way. After all, now that they’ve moved past all that, their time together means even more. The fact that they were equally shy probably helped build the mutual understanding that seemed to form so quickly between them.

No, she didn’t notice the approving looks that Puckett and Martin supposedly gave her. “Needless to say, I’m glad they gave them, although it’s sad to think that three such seemingly intelligent boys would have such poor taste in some things.”

She’s not as dubious about how her parents will react to their desire to marry earlier as she is about his parents’ reaction. She thinks her folks will say it is a decision that Dot and Dart must make for themselves. “And yet they can’t help but harbor some ideas on the subject and it’s up to us to find out what those ideas are.”

If she’d had any idea Dart was so well-informed about contraceptive methods, she would have kept the thought to herself. Now he’ll have to wait until she has fully researched, read and digested all the information she can find before they discuss it further. “Seems to me when Mom was giving me the ‘dope’ about the birds and the bees, she neglected to even touch upon that subject. But then, 12 is a little young to talk about such things.” She will say now, however, that she has no religious objections to using artificial means. It seems more “sinful” to her to bring a child into the world that you are not prepared for and cannot afford to support

From where she sits, 17 months sounds like a very long time to wait for a wedding, but she guesses it will go by pretty fast once he’s out of the Navy. “Besides, if we get married June 20th (the day after I’ll be 21), it’s only about 521 days or 74 weeks and three days. Does that sound better?”

She thought she’d read all the recent issues of Life, but she has no idea what sport he was referring to in his recent letter. Can he enlighten her? Also, she can’t image what big moral, ethical and emotional question he wants to ask her, but she hopes he doesn’t forget to ask it. She suspects she’ll be as much “at sea” about it as he is.

Dot tells Dart how much fun she had going to church with his mother on Sunday. In fact, she has lots of fun whatever she does with his parents. She’s so indebted to them for their many kindnesses, and for having a son like Dart. She wishes she could find some meaningful way of showing them how grateful she is to them. Someday she’ll try to show her deep appreciation for this swell pair.

The things he writes about looking forward to are the same kind of things she dreams of. It’s never material things, but rather everyday occurrences. One thing in particular that she gets a kick out of imagining is seeing Dart discipline their kids. She can’t imagine that he’ll raise his voice, but she thinks he’ll be quite successful without doing that. She hopes all their kids turn out to be just like their Pop!

“I’ll leave you with this thought which I want you to always remember – I love you, I have loved you since the moment I first saw you, and I will continue to love you ad infinitum.”

Dart feels a little cheated that his birthday brought no mail from anyone. He blames the mail service – not his correspondents.

There’s a discussion about film; he got a roll back from the developer and invites Dot to check out the pictures when she’s at his folks’ house. He was able to secure three rolls of black and white film in town, so he’s not as bad off as he thought he’d be. He hopes there are some sunny days before their cameras are confiscated at the Canal so he can get some good “sea and me” photos with the color film Dot sent him.

He was surprised to get $33 in his pay envelope today. That gives him a little extra cash to spend while he’s in Panama. If I had to guess, I’d say most of his pocket money will go toward film and food.

The rumor mill is rampant on board the Craig, just as it always is immediately prior to a ship’s sailing. A South American cruise or Atlantic Ocean/US East coast duty. Wherever the Craig takes him, he hopes Dot will take heart from the fact that they can never be more than 8,000 miles apart.

“I love you always, my Darling. Let’s put out the lights and sit by the fire a while before we go to bed.”

#     #     #

It’s a sweetly sentimental letter from Dot tonight. Ellie just left on a blind date with “Tip,” who has received the seal of approval from everyone in the house. It looked for a while like he’d be a no-show because he was supposed to be there at 6:00 and wasn’t able to find the little berg of Kent until 7:15. It wasn’t until 10:30 last night that Ellie found out she had a date. At that point, all the girls in the house pulled out all the stops to get her ready. “She washed her hair last night and I had to brush it while she sat in front of the heater. By combining the best of our best outfits, we managed to dress her like a model, but so help me, if she gets a run in my nylons, I’ll burst!”

She finally heard from her mother regarding Dart’s “hefty” letter, and the response was just as she expected it to be. “And so, this puts the problem right back into our laps, which is of course exactly where it should be considering it is our problem. I wish I could think up some really good ideas on the subject, but all I know is that I want to be your wife soon, and will do everything possible to help make that dream become a reality.”

Here, Dot writes a lovely description of a winter walk she took on campus. It’s the kind of writing she so admires from Dart, and I’d say she does a masterful job herself. “Tonight I went for a short walk by myself hoping maybe I’d get an inspiration (about the wedding date question.) The night is certainly an inspiring one. The wind made my face feel like a pin cushion, but the feeling was an enjoyable one. The moon and stars were out in all their glory, leaving just enough space for a suggestion of clouds, adding a touch of real winter to the atmosphere. This is the kind of night that makes me want to walk for hours hand in hand with you. The kind of night where talk would be almost sacrilegious – when a tender look or a gentle squeeze of the hand might accomplish the same thing. The wind, trying at first to seem harsh and unfriendly, gradually comes to like having you around for the evening and puts itself out to make you understand its sole purpose now is to protect you. The tingling sensation that passes through your body keeps you constantly refreshed although your body is limp with awe at the beauty of it all.”

“Although tonight doesn’t remotely resemble the rainy night we drove out from New York, it reminded me of it in some way. I was actually glad the car broke down because we had so much fun sitting there at the gas station singing every song we could think of. Gee, that was fun. I remember how Cynthia kept looking at me and gave me little winks of approval. I know she thinks I’ve got a much better man than I deserve, and since my argument wouldn’t stand up five minutes, I’ve never questioned her opinion.”

She tells Dart she’s going over to the monthly social dance on campus tomorrow night, mostly so Janie will go. Besides, she wants to learn the newest dance steps. She also reports that the girls in the house had cake and ice cream and sang “Happy Birthday” in Dart’s honor tonight. She’d hoped she could write four pages tonight, but all she can seem to do is dream about that day some 520 days away.

She surely hopes she’ll be able to hear his voice via a phone call before he leaves, and tell him how much she loves him. She’ll stay home tomorrow night hoping to catch his call.

Dart is at the USO again tonight, where he came to call Dot. What a glorious (and fast) five minutes that phone call was! It seemed wonderfully strange to be able to call her the night before sailing – or even mention a sailing date at all. “The best thing of all, though, is that no nosy censor will be there to cramp my style. Maybe the censors didn’t cramp my style very much, but it sure seemed like it to me. Every time I wanted to write something, I’d think of some old gold-braided goof who’d do one of three things: he’d scoff and say I was full of something; he’d ‘read a good one’ to his wardroom buddies; or he’d make a mental note to make the same approach to his wife or maybe to some girl he was currently on the make for. After thinking all that, I’d usually write something like my original idea anyway.”

There’s a dance going on upstairs and it’s shaking the whole building. He says there are “lots of distractions walking around on high heels.”  Then he adds that someday he and Dot will have their day – a chance to show other people how they can dance. He only hopes no one looks at them too closely.

The ship is showing signs of pre-cruise life, making everyone on the crew sad. He must be getting used to hopelessness because the Craig looks a little less hopeless to him now, but he says any and all opinions on that topic are subject to change.

His mom’s letter today gave news that Homer Singer’s division is all back in the States now. Dart hopes that means Homer is, too. “Seems like all the boys have scattered. I hear occasionally from Forbush, but of the others, Follett is dead; McCarthy’s married, expecting, and a ‘regular’ Army man, Fred doesn’t write letters anymore, and in general all my correspondence has petered out to the ones I write to you and our immediate families. I hope to hear from Fred again, when he’s released from his ‘oppression.’ I wish there were something that could be done to relieve him of his mental strain, but he’s far from being the type of person who would stay satisfied long.”

He mentions that Blevins and Kanter each whipped him in games of checkers and chess, respectively. He says he hopes he won’t pick up any bad habits of pinochle, chess, or other sorts of games when there are so many more interesting things to waste one’s time on. (He never developed an interest in games of any kind, except for an occasional game of Scrabble.)

He’s a little anxious to read Ruth Chamberlain’s response to the question of Dot and Dart getting married sooner than planned. Now that Dot has sent her letter to him, he expects it could be a couple of weeks before he sees it, unless it arrives before he departs.

He just learned that a girl at the dance upstairs fell and broke her arm, leading him to suggest that he and Dot stick with the waltz.

He likes the line Dot wrote about being curled up on his bed. It sounds so nice and cozy. He likes to see her curled up and sleeping on the davenport where she looks as sweet and peaceful as a little girl.

He ends this long letter with a tender goodnight. “Time for us to leave each other again, but just for a little while. It’s been nice being with you tonight and all the nights since I met you. I keep wishing and half-expecting to meet you at every turn of my walks, in every store front. I love you forever.”

#     #     #

It’s a lonely and blue co-ed who writes tonight, begging Dart to keep those long, thick letters coming as often as possible. She has a headache and she feels terrible – perhaps from a lack of sleep. Her English class doesn’t help much, either. She got her first theme back today and was disheartened to receive a C+.

The Marines have landed to put one girl’s heart right. That is, one Marine in the form of “Tip,” and the heart he has set right is Ellie’s. Although she only met him last night, she believes she’s in love. Until her blind date yesterday, she’d never been kissed and now she’s caught up with Dot and Dart! If they thought they were slow, they need to adjust their thinking to “prehistoric!” Dot hopes Tip isn’t just handing Ellie a line, but he seems quite nice and at 24, he ought to know what he’s doing. Anyway, the house got what they’d been working toward – a date for Ellie to Friday’s dance.

She’d intended to see “The Story of GI Joe” when it was in town, but missed the chance. Then she was warned by others not to see it, being the “emotionally unstable” person that she is. She doubts she’d cry for days, but thinks it’s best she avoid it, all the same.

Regarding his recent doctor visit when he was deemed “undernourished,” she remarks that it wouldn’t take a doctor to see that! Perhaps he’s eating too much junk and not enough good food. She chides him to take good care of himself and eat a more healthy diet because that’s her future husband he’s got there and she wants her husband to be healthy.

She fears he was premature in his prediction that she would do well in physical science this term. She had the same delusion the first day, but now she’s lost. She doesn’t know an erg, joule or dyne from a hole in the ground. She so very much wanted to raise her grades, but feels like such a moron that she doesn’t see how that’s possible.

“You are a stinkier for telling your mom what I said about going to bed. But don’t think I won’t get back at you some day, you dear boy. Your mom entertains me with tales about you when I go there for the weekend, and although I won’t divulge the information now, I can use it for blackmail at a later date. So there!”

Suddenly, she’s feeling better. She was so thrilled to hear his voice so clearly. The phone was so clear she could almost see his expressions. Was he proud that she barely cried at all? Actually, as soon as she hung up, the dam burst, and she blubbered like a baby. She doesn’t know why because she knew that call was coming, and the chance to hear his voice is worth almost anything. She only hopes the next three months fly by and that there will not be too many more full moons like tonight’s that will go to waste.

Dart wrote a complicated opening sentence about calling home, missing his mother who was visiting Aunt Flora, and planning a second call so that he could tell his mother good-bye. Then he writes, “If you’d count the commas in that sentence, you’d find more than the average English instructor could stand.” He goes on to have a little fun with the following sentence. “But you, not being one, and I, not being one, either, can see no fault, at all, in the use of five, six, seven, or eight commas in a single sentence, can we?”

How I love that paragraph! It reminds me of how much fun my father had with language – from soaring, poetic vocabulary to the absurd use of punctuation, sometimes at the expense of overly zealous English teachers.

He writes that his Aunt Flora has been quite ill with heart problems which are exacerbated by cold weather.

Tonight marks the beginning of his third month on the John R Craig. If the same moon as appears tonight can be seen on Saturday, there will be a ship full of homesick boys watching it.

“I wish there were something I could say on this occasion. I hate making ‘small talk’ in a letter when I should be writing of all the love I have for you, my Darling. The feeling I have now is the hopeless feeling I used to have at Ulithi, when I’d be writing one of the last letters of a stay in port. It’s the feeling that I’d like to be with you now, and not leaving.”

There’s a big difference, though, between then and now because he and Dot are engaged! He marvels at how little value some people give to that word. But to him and his beloved, it means they have given each other a vow as precious as the one they will make as soon as it’s possible for them to marry. When people hear that they are engaged, he wonders if they can guess at how much love and tenderness and passion that represents? Can they know of the trust and the interests and the memories wrapped up in that state?

“Just time to say good night before the USO closes. I love you always and forever, my Darling.  – Your own fiance who is counting the days until he can be a good (he hopes) husband for you.”

#      #      #

Dot got two letters from Dart today, which means none tomorrow. Maybe that’ll be good practice at hardening herself to the letterless days to come. “The longest time I ever had to endure without mail from you was fourteen days. That was just after you went overseas the first time. I remember how thrilled I was when your mom woke me up one morning by throwing a stack of fourteen letters on my bed. That happened while I was staying there at graduation time last year. It’s been almost a year to the day since you went overseas the first time. Even though we haven’t seen each other very much over the past year, lots has happened to us.”

She hopes the mail service will be better than he expects. She’ll continue to write daily, even though it is her opinion that her letters are never worthy of being preserved through the years. At least they might mean the difference between his name being called at mail call, and not.

She wonders how he could write about his “smooth sailing” aboard the Haggard. It seems to her as though he went through some pretty rough times on that old ship.

She assures him it won’t be long before he’s working on his trains again. She loves to watch him fiddle with those trains and that pile of differential gears he has. “In fact,  I love to watch you do anything, except talk without your teeth.”

Now that he’s gone, she wishes she were spending the weekend with his folks. But, it’s not a good idea to go there too often because she ends up wishing she could stay with them all the time.

It’s time for her to wrap this up and get some sleep. She has a physical science test tomorrow, but claims it’s almost useless for her to even go to class.

She loves him and urges him not to get seasick.

Dart’s first letter of the day, jotted off in the last few minutes before the ship pulled anchor, is an attempt to let Dot know how much he loves her. “I can’t even begin in the few minutes I have left. Can’t even call all I’ve said and done in the past a real beginning. It’s just the beginning of the beginning of how much I can say about my love for you.”

A letter from Dot arrived minutes ago, but he will save that for a day at sea.

When they cast off their lines in a few minutes, their next stop will be Panama. They will have firing practice while at sea, and modified wartime watches.

Has he said he loves her? Well, he does.

The next letter starts at 6:30 that evening. He hopes his earlier note made it off the ship before they left. Today has been smooth and pleasant sailing, although there is a wicked vibration in his berth area. The vibration makes it hard to write and his thoughts are getting ahead of his pen.

Their first meal at sea was one worthy of high praise from Dart. Baked ham, candied yams, bean soup, salad and mince pie (good, for a change.) The evening meal proved just as impressive. Dart’s grateful for both the quantity and the quality of the food, so far, thanks to some new cooks they picked up in Charleston.

They’re doing about 18 knots and running will all their topside lights on. With the free and easy manner below decks, the whole cruise is a vastly different experience from a wartime cruise. So far he’s been impressed by the tight schedule aboard this ship. When the posting says they leave port at 1400, that’s exactly what happens.

He wonders what makes the waters of the Atlantic Ocean green, instead of the deep blue of the Pacific.  “The smooth waters reflected the mother-of-pearl colors of the sunlit sky, and our tranquil evening was a pleasant one. …We didn’t go to G-Q to test equipment when we left port, and there are no gun watches being stood.”

“My General Quarters station is in the radar room of a 40-mm gun. The name of my position is ‘tacu,’ pronounced ‘tack-you,’ and nobody seems to know just what the heck I’m supposed to do, aside from watch a radar scope and twirl a dial or two. Just which scope and which dials, I have yet to learn.”

Continued on January 20…

“They pulled a fast one on us last night. The lights go out in the compartments at 1900 each evening, so last night they went out as I was writing to you. I went to bed at 2000 (that’s 8:00!) and slept until reveille at 6:30 today.”

Today, they went to G-Q twice and abandon ship stations once. He’s learned which dials to turn and which scope to watch, but he still has no idea what “tacu” means. They got their watch assignments for the week and he has a pretty sweet deal. Mostly, he must throw a life preserver to anyone who falls overboard. The only problem he sees is that one of his watches is stood just outside the bridge where it’s always as windy as can be, and a real problem when it rains.

He’s enjoying his camera and has decided to save some of  his films for various maneuvers they’ll be doing while underway; things like fueling, mail transfer and the like.

“Everything seems familiar. The motion of the ship, the vibration, the sound of the rushing water and the  fuel oil as it gurgles back and forth beneath us. The clean whiteness of the wake and the swift-moving whitecaps. The headachy feeling that comes from standing in the wind and squinting at brightly-lighted water. That same wind also makes eyes feel crinkled at the corners, like old-time sailors look, and it makes the face feel hot, flushed, and healthy when we stand in a sheltered spot.”

How he wishes Dot could see and experience this with him. His greatest enjoyment is imagining her standing there with him, arm-in-arm, watching the sea.

#      #      #

Dot’s trying to write a letter while Ellie sets her hair, but Ellie keeps interrupting to tell Dot about her great time at the dance. Apparently Tip has not lost his appeal.

Only four girls from the house went to the dance. Most of the others went home, except for Dot and Joyce who had a swell time for themselves. While Joyce napped, Dot cleaned out her closet, covered her grocery shelves and silverware box with oil cloth and made an oilcloth apron to wear if she ever fries anything. She says she’s looking very “domestic,” but her cooking is still strictly amateur.

Joyce got out of bed just as the other kids were returning from the dance, so she and Dot decided to be little devils. “We noticed there was a car parked at the side of the house and figured it was Ellie and Tip. We were right, and the fun began. We turned out all the lights in our room, opened the window, and turned my spotlight on them. (Much cheaper than going to a movie and twice as much fun.) Oh, but they were going to be smart! Tip backed the car up a few yards and turned off the motor. But should we let that stop us? I should say not! Quick like a bunny, we went to Janie and Mid’s room to repeat the performance. This time, Cpl. Dye (now Mr. Dye) was sure he was going to get rid of us. He backed the car clear to the rear of the house and stopped. Oh, but Earla’s room also has windows in it, which made it ever so much easier for Joyce and me to carry on our fiendish trick. We stood and watched them until it got boring, and then we went about our business. (Or, should I say we went about nosing in other people’s business.) Anyway, we went about. There was a sailor and a girl in each of the parlors downstairs. We couldn’t understand why, but the lights weren’t on. Meaning only to do them a favor, we thought we’d let them know in a subtle way that it was almost time to go home. Setting a sweet, gentle Big Ben alarm clock for 1:00, we sneaked downstairs and put it in one of the pianos. Then we sneaked back upstairs, sat on the landing, and waited for the bomb to explode. At 1:00 a noise which sounded very much like LaGuardia’s pet fire engine, echoed through the house. Quickly, one of the sailors ran out to shut the thing off. Thinking Miss Olin had put it there, he hastened back to make with one last good-night kiss. (I guess that’s what he went back for.)

“So — we sneaked back downstairs, grabbed the alarm clock and took it upstairs to torment Ellie and Tip once more. We hung the clock out the window and it made such a terrific racket that the trees vibrated. They took the hint, finally, and came in. By the time Ellie got upstairs, we were ‘sleeping like little angels.’ Even though we didn’t go to the dance, we had a barrel of fun. That doesn’t mean you should make a point of not being around for our dances, however. Your mom says she’s eager to see us in formal attire. To tell the truth, I, too, would like to see you in a different ‘monkey suit.'”

She explains that when she sees all of the “drips” who attend Kent, she’s even more lonesome for Dart. Out of the four men who had dates with her housemates tonight, only one brought a corsage to his girl. That one went to waste because he was dressed in a suit, and the dance was strictly formal, so the couple was not allowed in. She bets only 3 out of 100 men come close to being a gentleman like Dart. She’s so grateful that he keeps all these young women from losing all faith in the male sex.

Only 517 days until June 20, 1947!