Dart writes that he is gradually getting accustomed to his new life out here. Life on a tin can is teaching him all sorts of things every day. For example, he has learned a valuable lesson of how to stow clothing in his locker. Because regular duckings by fierce or playful waves make for frequent changes of clothing, he’s learned to fold an entire outfit, from underwear and socks to dungarees and shirt, into one neat package. Then when he has to change on the double, he just grabs a bundle and has everything he needs in one hand.

He tells her she needn’t worry that this life would ever take first place in his heart over Cleveland. “The way we like it here is to try to forget about home, to think of all the worse places we could be, to forget where we are and why, and then it sorta comes on us that maybe this place would be alright as a last choice.”

It doesn’t sound to Dart like Dot really wants to hear much “about that ‘perfect size 12’ girl I mentioned once. She may have been size 12 – I wouldn’t know about that – but as far as perfection goes, she wasn’t it. ‘Nuff said. I think size 14 would be alright for you. Don’t let all the effort of getting there mar your charming personality and sweet looks, though.”

Referring to her long-ago comment about Washington’s birthday falling on a work day and her hopes that by the time it’s on a Sunday, she’ll have the type of job where she won’t have to work weekends, he commented that the holiday falls on a Sunday in just three years. He says that doesn’t leave much time for the war to end and for the two of them to “get started.” How he hopes he’ll be able to provide for  her when they can get married. He hopes the first year or two after the war aren’t too difficult. He wants to finish college and get a big job in a big hurry.

He ends with “By the way, the only way we know it’s Sunday around here is when some guy says “Jeezuss, we’re having chicken noodle soup for chow!”

Having broken her promise to write last night, Dot explains that she was struggling with her mother’s birthday cake. The devil’s food came out okay, but the frosting was a disaster. She ran out of powdered sugar and had to use granulated. Chewing the frosting felt like eating sand.

Next Thursday, she’s taking the day off work to go into NYC with Nancy Clapp. Her dad has a list of supplies he’d like her to get and she needs new shoes. If there’s time, they hope to take in a show.

The weather today was spring-like, but earlier this week, it was cold, wet and snowy. She says last night was a perfect night for “indoor sports,” and says she means just what he’s thinking!

Last night she dreamed that Dart’s brother had joined the Navy and was already an Ensign. Dot says she’d take a lowly bell-bottom wearing sailor if the one wearing them was Dart.

While trying to fall asleep last night, she thought back to every detail of their time together in November. She can’t figure out why they didn’t change their awkward seating arrangement with him in the straight back chair and her on that low couch. She also doesn’t know why she couldn’t open up and say what was in her heart when he was saying all those pretty things to her. He must have thought her an awful twerp.

Now she takes comfort in knowing that each day brings her one day closer to seeing him again.

For a brief time today, Dart thought he might be able to meet Dot’s brother. While he was in port, he saw a ship he thought was Gordon’s and he asked the signalman to send a message over to it. A response came back that they were talking to the wrong ship. Oh well, maybe next time…

As he’s mentioned before, huge waves break over the deck of the Haggard fairly frequently, soaking everyone it their paths. It seems that Dart has developed a reputation of being in the wave’s path more often than anyone else. At times, he thinks there’s a trained shark following the ship, ready to squirt a big spray of salt water whenever Peterson sets foot on deck. A couple of days ago, it reached slapstick comedy levels when first his feet got soaked as a wave washed over the deck on his early morning watch at the bow. Later, as he walked aft, nearly dry from the earlier ducking, another wave came aboard and , Voila! He was wearing wet pants. Everybody laughed, including Dart, I think. He concludes with “It shouldn’t happen to any dog.”

But wait! There’s more. In the late afternoon while he walked the deck, he saw the wave coming. He grabbed the handiest thing which would support his weight and hoisted his feet up. The wave rolled under his feet, up the side of the deck house, bounced off and soaked him from hat to brogans. “It could only happen in the movies, or to me.”

A week from today will be Easter. It was about a year ago that Dot and his parents met for the first time while he was in the hospital, hundreds of miles away. “Maybe some of these years we may all be home together for the holidays. All the holidays. From New Year’s Day through New Year’s Eve, for many years in succession.” Nice dream.

He writes that he is sitting here with Donn Byron recalling how he met Dot, where he met her, how much he liked her from the very first moment. “Golly Dot, you’re swell. Every once in a while the very thought of you overwhelms me. To think that I should know and love a person like you, and then have you love me too, is almost too much to believe.”

I love how each of them feels like they won the lottery when they met each other. Both of them thinks s/he is the lucky one to have the other person love them. Isn’t that the very definition of romantic love?

Dot’s short letter is hard for her to write because she’s sitting in the Miller’s living room and they’re talking and the radio is playing. She’s spending the night because Mr. and Mrs. Miller are leaving at the crack of dawn for a three-day anniversary celebration in NYC. Dot will stay with the boys until a sitter arrives later in the morning.

As happens so often, Dot’s mind is running in the same channel as Dart’s today. She’s thinking how much she’ll miss him again at Easter. Last year she was hoping that by this year they could celebrate the holiday together and now she’s hoping the same thing about next year. These busy kids, surrounded by people and activity are so very lonely for each other. Let’s hope next Easter brings a reunion.

We have two very short notes today. Dart stood in line twice today so that he could buy two packs of stationery to replace the tiny lined notebook pages he’s been using for a few days.

He skipped the movie tonight to write to his old pal Fred – the only buddy he’s heard from in weeks. There have been big gaps in their mail service and they think they know why, but they don’t know where the mail is.

“I’ve never fallen asleep on a date, but tonight’s the nearest thing to it. Sitting here on a hard steel deck, with my feet out straight, your picture before me and my sore back getting stiffer, I fell asleep with my pen actually on the paper in the middle of a word. I love you night and day, my Darling.”

I hope Mom can shed a little light on the first paragraph of this letter she wrote. She says she had to work late tonight because the store had to do an O.P.A. inventory. “If there were no war, there would be no O.P.A. ceilings and I wouldn’t have had to work late tonight.” What is/was the O.P.A.?

She goes on to say that if there’d been no war, she would probably never have met Dart, so this nasty business has some compensation because she can’t imagine her life if they’d never met.

She bought some egg coloring today and thought about sending a dyed egg to Dart. Then she thought a rotten egg wouldn’t sit too well in a constantly rolling and pitching stomach, so she must content herself with thinking about him as she colors the eggs, and imagine doing the job with him someday.

Greenwich is gradually looking like Spring has sprung. The trees have a slight veil of bright green around their edges and she’s quite enjoying her case of Spring fever. She hopes it’s true that ‘in the Spring a young man’s fancy turns to what the girls have been thinking about all winter.'”

While she was filling in for the elevator operator today she tried to imagine what she would do if the door opened to reveal Dart standing there. She thinks if she didn’t faint dead away, she’d grab him inside, close the door and forget the buzzer until she’d had her fill of looking at him and pinching herself. “Golly, my heart skips a beat just thinking about it. If I didn’t have my day dreams, my days would never end. I have to live on them until the real thing comes along.”

She has bestowed upon him the title of “The Boy I’d Most like to See Every Time I Open My Eyes.” But now, she must close her eyes in sleep.

“You can’t imagine what it’s like to love someone as much as I love you – can you?” Yes, Dottie, I think he can.

There’s an endearing letter from Dart. With little news to tell and no new letters from Dot, he decides to respond to some of the letters he’s received from her that haven’t been answered yet.

The first one is dated January 14th! That seems so long ago – not long after Dart left for sea duty. He commented about her getting sick at her father’s birthday dinner. He thought it was interesting that she had a cousin who was going to the Belgian Congo with her husband and kids because he has a cousin who just returned from Liberia with her family. He regrets that her Spanish classes were discontinued.

Then he replies to the letter she wrote on his birthday in which she said that now that he’s 21, he can inherit his millions. He asks her “Millions of what?” and then tells her that he sure feels like a millionaire whenever he thinks about her.

He sends her written thanks for his birthday greetings until such time his thanks can be conveyed by word (and deed) of mouth. He got a big kick out of all the little cards she sent him for birthday and Valentines Day, especially that sly one about not getting “chaste” at all.

When she wrote the letter about all that bowling in a single afternoon, he expected the next letter to talk about how sore she was from bowling. He’s pretty impressed by her scores, which he says are much better than his. With all that bowling and babysitting, she should be nimble enough on her feet to keep out from under his when they dance. He suggests that maybe they should take lessons instead of murdering their pet corns.

He was thrilled to get the invitation to her graduation and wishes like anything that he could have been there with her.

He thanks her for signing her name “Dorothy,” just once. He loves that name as much as he likes the ever-endearing “Dot,” but the former reminds him of falling in love with a girl he knew her only as Dorothy. Seeing her signature that way reminds him of those first hours when something told him he had met the girl who would be his wife, if she’d have him.

This’ll be a short one from Dot, with a similar one tomorrow. She’ll be serving and doing dishes at a party tomorrow and will get home quite late.

She sure wishes he’d send those house plans! If he has, they haven’t arrived yet. She’s dying to look them over and show them around. Her dad thinks Dart’s a wonderful artist, and she just thinks he’s plain wonderful.

The headlines looked good today. “German Armies Defeated.” She know there are still the Japs that need to be routed, but the end must be getting close. She knows he and Gordon haven’t played their aces yet, or Japan would be on the run already.

She wishes he’d made a record before he left because she’s been trying to remember what his voice sounds like. All she can remember is “Apple pie, coffee,” and “Now hear this!,” neither of which were spoken in his natural voice. And the sweet whispers in her ear couldn’t be considered his natural voice either, although she hopes it was natural for him to say them to her. “Then of course, there’s the long explanation of the Mark I computer, but I’d just as soon forget that for the time being.” I love how she can tease him about that boring lecture he gave her and his folks about what he was learning.

She bids him good-night, with the hope that she’ll dream of him.

There’s still no mail call for Dart. He’s still in port and the rain has stopped, but the sea is too choppy for an “unnecessary” boat trip to the post office. Most of the men on board would argue that mail call is most necessary!

Since the rain has stopped, they’ve reverted to their in port routine; painting the ship. It’s a constant task, but today’s beautiful spring-like weather made it a pleasant one. As they were painting the outside of the ship, high above the sea’s surface, everyone was reminded of the perfect Spring days back home. Some even swore the breeze carried with it the fresh scent of cut grass and overturned earth.

He had promised Dot he would spend some time looking at March’s full moon, but the first time he went outside to look at it, he got a face full of rain. Tonight, however, the sky is filled with high yellow clouds and the brilliant moon is shining right through them. “Reminds me of a sequin-covered dress I dated for a dance once.”

After a beautiful descriptive paragraph about the perfect beauty of the weather and location, he writes, “Next to being at home with you, this is the best of Navy life. Guess I’m just a fair-weather sailor at heart, if I’m any kind of sailor at all.”

“Days like this, while they’re beautiful and pleasant, only make me wish all the more that you and I were enjoying them together.”

Dot’s letter is so witty and charming that I think I’ll quote most of it verbatim.

“If I promise faithfully to write a long letter tomorrow, will you let me by with another short one tonight? Thanks. I knew you’d understand. (What chance do you have to protest? None. That’s the way I do business.)

Our trip to New York yesterday was successful, barring the blisters, and we had lots of fun trying to find our way around the big city. We saw “Practically Yours,” with Claudette Colbert and Fred MacMurray, a very cute picture, and Benny Goodman in person. The whole show was excellent.

While we were waiting for our train to take us home, we decided to have our pictures taken in one of those machines. I took off my hat so I wouldn’t look stupid, but I might just as well have left it on. I look stupid anywho. I was planning to send you one, but not wanting you to stay out there, I decided against it. On the other hand, they tell us to send you boys things that will make you laugh, so who am I to deprive you of having a good laugh, even if it’s on me? By the way, that ‘come-on’ look that I’m wearing has a patent on it and is reserved for you and you alone.

Say, I don’t know who’s out there winning the war except you and Gordon. Looks to me like the entire fleet is in New York. I never saw so many sailors in my life, not even in the movies. A sailor and his girl sat right in front of us in the movies. They were holding hands. (Is there a sailor that doesn’t?) and boy, did I wish you were there!  This letter isn’t too short, considering I haven’t heard from you in a week and it’s 1:00 A. M. I love you and I miss you.”

How I’d love to see the photos she had taken in that booth – the ones with the patented  “come-on” look!