Dart begins, “What better way to start a new month than writing to my sweetheart? Especially if she’s as far away from me as you are. 34.7 miles is surely every bit as far as 3,470 miles or 12,000 miles. There’s only one big difference: we can phone each other.”

He picked up an interesting hitch-hiker on his way back to Cleveland last night, in part to keep his mind off the sad parting he’d had from Dot. The guy was a volunteer for the American Field Service. This group was made up mostly of men with a 4-F draft status who, nonetheless really wanted to serve. They drove ambulances for the Allies and did all sorts of liaison work. He’s just been back home since V-J day and has enrolled at Western Reserve as a freshman. Dart thoroughly enjoyed talking with him.

This morning Dart bought his dad and early birthday gift; sealed-beam headlights for the car. “Should do wonders for night driving.”

He really must get a letter off to Ruth Chamberlain, but he’s neglected her so far. He had such a wonderful time at the Chamberlain home during his first week of leave, but he’s been so busy with Dot ever since that he’s not written a proper thank-you letter.

“Now it’s my turn to dream about what we were doing 24-hours ago. I think it all began with a few poems, but I don’t think we were fooling ourselves or anybody else when we went up to read my “poetry.” You asked in the letter you wrote here whether you kept me up too late. What do you think? But it was very pleasant and worth every minute of it.”

He says that if he writes any more he’d have to borrow a “puttng-on tool” to make the paper longer, so he must end now by sending all  his love.

Dot has a proposal for the weekend; Dart could pick her up after her last class at 3:00 and they could skip the dance (which everyone says won’t be that great anyway) and have that much more time together. Or, if there’s no gas, she could take the first bus out of Kent and see him as soon as she could get to Cleveland. If he’d rather go to the dance, that’s also okay, because she only wants him to be happy.

Referring to the letter he wrote to her from across the room, she wonders why he always thinks she’s disgusted with him. She certainly wasn’t yesterday. “After all, you are on leave and should be allowed to spend your time as you see fit. Besides, I got a big kick out of watching you examine your trains. And don’t say they’ll never run again, ‘cuz they will. We’ll set up a special room in our dream house for the soul (sic) purpose of exercising those trains, and any more you make between now and then.”

She feels like college life is beginning to get underway now. She spent four hours at the registrar’s office, getting the results of her English and psychological exams. She scored average in English, so she won’t be able to place into the  honors class. The good news is, she also passed the psych exam, unlike 250 unfortunate others.

She has her classes scheduled, including field hockey, archery, soccer and beginning tap dancing. She also has biology, English, physical science, freshman orientation and education. All totaled, she has 17 credit hours, which will put her three hours ahead of the game by the end of the year. She’s happy that her friendly roommate, “Mid” has all the same classes.

The housemates decided to fix up their pitiful “kitchenette” so that they wouldn’t have to stand in line on campus to have breakfast. Dot took a collection from each girl in the house and went shopping for some staples; bread, Nescafe’, marmalade, eggs, bacon, milk and cold cereal. They have no ice box, but things are keeping pretty cold in the metal box outside the window. Now the sink in their tiny bathroom also doubles as a kitchen sink. “Of course, there are some difficulties to contend with, but when we get shelf paper and a schedule of who gets breakfast when, I think it’ll be lots of fun.” Leave it to Dot to make scratching out breakfast in a small, ill-equipped space sound like fun.

The weather was so bad this evening that no one from her house went to the reception at the President’s house. Anyway, she’s feeling pretty groggy from her cold. Her thumb nail has decided to fall off, although she can’t recall what she did to it. All she knows is that it looks gruesome. While she’s on the subject, her blister is healing beautifully, but she did so much walking today that she has another to take its place. “How I managed to get a 95% on a physical exam, I’ll never know. I’m a wreck!”

She hopes Dart will call on Wednesday, but if he doesn’t, she’ll call him. If the weather improves, she’ll try finishing the roll of film they started. How she hopes the pictures his mom took of them turn out well. She wants him to tell his mother that if she avoids getting pneumonia, it’s all because of the blanket she gave Dot. She’s been sleeping very well, snuggled under it. Her roommate told her she snored, though, so she warns Dart that he may have to sleep in a hotel whenever I have a cold. “Hope it won’t be too long before you have to worry about whether I have a cold or not! Know what I mean?”

The rest of the page is filled with brief notes from her housemates, Mid and Janie, who seem to like Dot and are eager to get to know her fabulous fiance better.

Hold on to your hats! Dart gets windy today, ending up with a 12-pager! (Well, actually, it’s two letters totaling 12 pages.) But what a letter it is. I’ll quote most of it here, verbatim.

“Here I sit, same location as yesterday, and the same spot I’ve been sitting on since I was old enough to sit. …The old Lake Erie wind is whistling up Superior Avenue with banshee wails, as if it were mourning the passed Summer. Once in a while it shrieks in fear of the onrushing winter. Even the trees are scared of the winter. Some are trying on old, ragged, colorfully patched disguises, and every tree I see is shaking like a leaf. ”

“That headachy gas heater in our livingroom is going full blast, and is the only warm thing around here, aside from my heart when I think of you. Mom just came downstairs, all hot and bothered about something, making a liar out of me already. Then, to make me a further prevaricator, I turned off the heater. Mom may have made a liar out of me, but she didn’t make a lyre out of me, the way you do by plucking at my heartstrings.”

“When I put the car away last night (in a DRIVING rain) I decided to do a little driving myself to test the new headlights. Boy — they are swell! Now it’ll be safer to drive 30 miles an hour at night. I took Pop to work today and drove the car back. The Green Chariot is parked out front with its 85 thirsty horses just itching to go places, and I can’t think of a single place to go. ”

“Speaking of thirsty horses, if one horse were fed 1/85th as much oil as the 85 horses in that car are fed, it wouldn’t be safe to cross the street where he’d been.”

“Yesterday I went up to see John Angel’s mother. Instead, I found his father. Mrs. Angel’s supporting the family now, I guess. Mr Angel very sarcastically, can’t understand why John, who has been in the States for three years, has to go overseas. After all, he says, there are men over there already who’ve had plenty of experience. His theory is to let the experienced men stay over there and let the young and tender John stay here. John’s ‘too young’ to go across, but I noted that he’s ‘older than most boys for his 20 years because he got married before he went overseas.’ (Pardon me while I check to see which direction the wind’s blowing.) That kind of stuff burns my…well it burns me up, anyway.”

“Other kids have gone across after only three to six months in the States, and at the age of 17 or 18. But John has to stay here three years. He just turned 21, so he’s too young. I retch, cough, spit blood, blow smoke from my nostrils, and flash fire from my eyes. There have certainly been better sports about this than the great Angel family.”

“Take, for instance, the Forbush family. Al, a classmate of mine at Shaw, recently visited Mom while he was home on a 30-day leave after spending almost a year in France, Belgium and Germany. I visited his mother after I walked out on Mr. Angel. He’s now on Luzon in the Philippines. They think it’s unfortunate, as does everyone, that men who have seen so much action should be sent to the Pacific as Army of Occupation, but there’s surely little of the same selfish, sniping, sniveling spirit that the Haloed Ones show.” (Tell us how you really feel, Dart!)

“Now for your letter: You must really have those kids at Kent trained if you can get them to listen to your tales of whoa (or is it ‘woe?’) about me. You must tell some pretty wild and hilarious whoppers. You don’t need much of a vocabulary to describe me. Just such words as lean, skinny, hollow-eyed, round-shouldered, dopey, stupid, sunken-chested, and frog’s belly would do quite well. Best be careful with that ‘frog’s belly’ though. It’s a two-edged sword. I don’t like the word ‘belly’ much either. I’ve always heard it associated with ‘conditions’: Two much beer, for one; and something else for the other. The results in the two cases are different, though. The type caused by beer is often prefixed by ‘pot’, and is also known as a ‘German goitre.'”

“Do you have any idea, Dot, how much I love you? I think you do. If you do, then you know something of how much I miss you. When we’re apart, my days and hours are as empty as the other side of this sheet threatens to be”

“G’bye for now, my Darling. I love you very much. Oh, why must things be as they are? They’re right, I guess, but I’m impatient.”

Continuing with another letter later that day…

“Boy! What a mess our house is in! When we have that little white house with the circulating hot water heat, let us always remember to check certain things before we fill the system for the winter.”

“Of course, our house here is slightly different from the one we plan to have, but what happened here today may make us a bit wiser. In our third floor store room there is an expansion tank. In Mrs. Shaffer’s house next door, there is an expansion tank. These are used to provide room for the water in the system to expand into as it gets warm. As an added attraction of some sort, these two expansion tanks are connected by a bit of pipe which runs through the wall.” (Note to readers: these houses Dart speaks of are townhomes, with a common wall between them.)

“This afternoon I checked our hot-water systems. All radiators were full, and there was the proper amount of pressure shown on the gauge on the furnace. Mrs. Shaffer, though, was absent-minded. She left the water running into her system. Then she made a phone call.”

“The water ran merrily. It filled her system, then her expansion tank. After that, it filled our expansion tank, and ran into a rust-filled and thoroughly stopped-up overflow pipe. The tank ruptured and our third floor storage room got an untimely but very thorough bath. The water continued to spray merrily while Mrs. Shaffer talked and Mom worked in the kitchen oblivious to the devil’s work going on over her head. My first inkling that disaster (of sorts) was impending came when Mom yelled ‘Turn off the water and come quick! The house is falling to pieces!'”

“Not knowing what water to turn off, I came quick. Water was cascading from the top of the frame of Mr. Kuntz’s door. Mom was placing available pots and pans to catch the dripping H2O. The tall ceiling was soaking wet. Water was dripping in a steady stream from that odd looking device which supports the hall light. The hall floor was covered with water, and it had started dripping down the stairs. Mr. Kuntz’s room was flooded. The walls were wet and water was oozing out and running down.”

“I chased on up to the third floor and came face to face with that horrible corpse-like false face Burke had hung on a hook in the storage closet. It was sedately nodding a greeting to me, as if to say ‘Come on in, the water’s fine.’ The spray was pushing it slowly back and forth.”

“Everything in the closet was soaked. There wasn’t much water on the floor. What was there had run through the walls and to the second floor. What was still spraying out the hole was being absorbed by priceless (and now worthless) heirlooms. ”

“By the time Mom had called the plumber across the street and I had returned to the first floor, the stuff had soaked through the second floor and run through the walls and was polluting the ceilings of the living room and dining room. ”

“I ran to Mrs. Shaffer’s, suspecting the cause. THEN she remembered.”

“Poor Mrs. Shaffer nearly had another heart attack when I told her about the water. Eventually the water got turned off and the plumber patched up the leak. But oh! Our beautiful (?) ceilings! Pop’s wanted a good excuse to paint the first and second floor ceilings, and now he has it. My job, when I finish here, is to place papers under the wet spots, just in case there should be an earthquake, or Burke should come home, or some other thing might happen to shake the house.”

“You miss all the excitement.”

We (Mom,Pop & I) spent a few minutes this evening discussing financial plans for us (you and me). Pop suggested what we’ve been thinking for quite a while: to begin buying a house just as soon after we get married as we can. Moving around for 25 years and not having a thing to show for it except rent receipts has sort of got them worried, now that Pop can’t work hard anymore. But they suggested one thing which runs contrary to our hopes and plans, but sounds reasonable; buy a lot with a house on it If the dream home is not available, get one which is nearly like it and has possibilities for making right. They present good argument against buying a lot with the intentions of building on it ‘eventually.’ For to buy an undeveloped lot means to pay taxes and interest on the lot as well as paying to rent someplace to sleep. That could, and often does, eventually lead to ruin, or at least to nowhere at all. To buy a house and lot is to provide space to live in while it is being paid for. What do you think? Be frank and honest. I’d still love to build that dream home of ours.”

“Another thing we talked about was insurance: how necessary it is; how much to figure on and allow for; and what kind to get. There are surely plenty of things to consider thoroughly before we are married That’s one reason I consider it wise to wait, no matter how impatient we may be right now. These things such as insurance and the means to pay for it, and a home and the means to pay for it are things which must be well-straightened out before or immediately after we are married.”

“Doesn’t the little spot on the other side of this sheet look lonely> That’s the way I feel when you’re away.”

“Good night, my Darling. I love you beyond all description. It will take a lifetime of words, music and actions to explain.”

Dot has a little breather between exams  to jot off a quick letter. This morning, the new students took a speech and hearing test and a personality test. In a few minutes, she’ll take a vocational exam and then she’s done with tests for a few weeks.

“Tonight there’s a house meeting to elect a house president. I have no fears of being elected, though. Whoever wants that job is welcome to it. Oddly enough though (or maybe it’s not so odd), no one seems to want it.”

She continues later that day: She and her housemates were soaked to the skin as they returned from campus after the exams. Even though the sun was shining, the rain was pouring. Fortunately, they were rewarded with a gorgeous rainbow.

After the house meeting, she’s stunned to report that she was elected house president! She doesn’t want the job, in spite of it being a (dubious) honor. “It seems to me the president always ends up being the pet peeve of a group like this.” (There she is again, showing wisdom beyond her years.)

She’s nervous about classes starting tomorrow. She realizes she’s been away from school a long time and has forgotten everything she might have once known about studying. “Ah, well, they can’t expect me to do more than my best, which is what I’m going to do.”

She asks Dart to call her tomorrow night since she probably won’t get a letter from him. She’s eagerly looking forward to Friday when they will see each other again.

Dart’s chatty letter begins with the story of his visit to Shaw High School to see some of the teachers he and Dot had missed when he visited last week. His former math teacher tried to use Dart to impress his current students with Dart’s memory, but all he managed to do was impress them with how little Dart remembered of algebra. While at the school, Dart noted the gold stars on the Honor Roll. Sadly, I think the stars indicated that the person was deceased, and there were far too many from Dart’s young class. He says the stars are now beside “just names of memories instead of names of people.”

Later in the day, he visited his aunts and uncles, known collectively as “the Burkes.” They are all the unmarried siblings of his mother who live together in East Cleveland. He and his Uncle Tom, recently retired from the Navy, swapped sea stories for the entertainment of the aunts.

He loved hearing Dot’s voice and her news over the phone this evening. He’s proud of her election as house president, and he thinks that since she knows the job is a thankless one, she’ll be able to avoid some of the pitfalls of it. He’s surprised she didn’t score higher on her English exam because her letters are so fine. He chalks it up to nerves and says he’s experienced the same thing for math and chemistry exams.

He’s impressed by her organization of the kitchette and asks if he can drop by for breakfast some cold winter morning. He’s happy they’ve decided not to attend the campus dance, and even happier that they’ll see each other this weekend. He hopes the blanket his folks gave will continue to be warm enough as the weather cools down, but tells her to not hesitate to ask his family for anything she needs except money – and she could even ask them for that if her situation was dire. He hopes her thumb nail will grow back, but if not, perhaps she could fashion a replacement part out of celluloid.

He describes a cold and blustery day in Cleveland today, with thick rolling clouds. “The sky showed through in the spots where the clouds had rips, tears, and moth-holes. I’ve always liked a rugged sky like that.”

He writes a quick note in mirror writing to Dot’s friend Janie and adds a PS to the other girls in the house to please be nice to his Dottie.

Dot’s letter was brief and sweet, so I’ll quote it here, almost verbatim.

“Just finished writing my composition and both my room-mates are asleep, so this will have to be brief.”

“It gave me the usual thrill to hear your voice tonight. There were lots of things I wanted to say but with 11 girls hanging over the banister listening to my every word, what was I to do? Well, whatever it was, I didn’t do it. Anyway, you don’t need to be reminded of how much I love you, do you?”

“I like school more and more as I get into the swing of things, but I’m ‘fraid it’s not going to be a cinch. Phyllis, the room-mate from Missouri, is very ambitious and intelligent, so maybe she’ll be an inspiration for me. You’re my real inspiration, though, ‘cuz I want you to be proud of me.”

“Must close before my roomies start throwing things or saying things nice girls just don’t say.”

Because these two will be together all weekend, there are no letters until Dart’s on the 7th. See you then.

Dart’s letter brings Dot up to date on how he’s filling his time since she went back to Kent State. He stopped by the Plain Dealer to see if he could pick up extra copies of the engagement announcement and learned they wouldn’t be available for a few more days. He got copies of the train schedules to Norfolk for his return to duty. He obtained extra copies of the East Cleveland Blatt engagement announcement and he purchased some sulfer cream. He visited the Dixons and the Singers (parents of his high school buddies who are still in the service), as well as his aunts and uncles. He also left two rolls of film at the drug store for developing.

Although it’s two o’clock in the morning as he writes this, he takes a break to polish off two bran muffins and a Pepsi-Cola before continuing. He got a nice letter from Dot’s mother today containing copies of the announcement in the Greenwich Time. Dart was not too impressed with the job that newspaper did on the photo of his beloved Dot and wonders what her impression of it was. On further reflection, he decides it’s not a bad photo; it just can’t do justice to her beauty.

The waning days of his leave will be incredibly busy. Although he’s getting many requests for a few moments of his time, he’s selfishly trying to cling to the brief time to do what he wants to do – not what others want from him. Top on his list is a dinner out with his mom and pop and a visit with Mrs. Carle. She’s the mother of his buddy Art who was killed in action several months ago. How thoughtful of this young man to place such a high priority on a task that might be very difficult, but would mean so much to a very sad woman.

He misses Dot terribly. Although they will see each other briefly at the train station next weekend, their time together is for all intents and purposes over. He dreads the loneliness that will fill his days when he returns to the ship. “I don’t know whether I want you to cry or not on Saturday (at the train station). If you do, I’ll feel more miserable, but maybe I want to feel miserable. Better not cry. It’ll be hard enough.”

Dot’s letter begins “It must be true that ‘all the world loves a lover.’ The kids were so sincere in their enthusiasm to hear more about us that it made me positively pouchy with pride. They want to know if it’s love that makes me “screwy” or if I was always this way. Aren’t I lucky to have a choice on how I went nuts, and when?”

She can’t take a breath without thinking of him. She misses him so much that all she can pray for is that he’ll get his discharge soon so they can be together forever.

She and her room-mate Mid are trying to finish up their English assignment before class. The task is to create three “well-rounded, well-developed, interesting sentences.” So far all they’ve accomplished is to decide that there is no such animal. They have come to the conclusion that when called upon in class to share their sentences, they will be unable to utter anything more than “Uh,” so they’re making plans now to take the next train home.

She must quit now so she has time to brush up her tap dance routine. Perhaps he remembers her from her Vaudeville days, when she performed onder the moniker of “Dingletoes Dottie.”

It was a lazy day for Dart. He and his parents went into Chinatown to eat dinner at his folks’ favorite Chinese restaurant. I didn’t know Cleveland had a Chinatown, but maybe it grew up as a result of the railroads that grew so large around that city. He wonders if Dot like Chinese food.

He spoke with a reporter from the News today about the possibility of him doing a feature story about Dart’s model railroad cars. Dart will take some of his best hand-crafted cars to the paper tomorrow for photographs and an interview with the reporter, Christiansen.

While downtown, he bought his train ticket and searched for a scrap book to hold the plans and ideas for their future home. He clipped plans for a sweet little house from the News last night and will include them in the scrapbook.

He adds a funny story: “Remember that time Mom surprised us by coming home early? Tonight, I got back at her. I surprised Mom and Pop in a clinch in the kitchen. Walked blindly into it. After a while, Pop said, ‘Want us to teach you how to do that. You might need to learn.’ I said, “No thanks. You waited too long. I learned a couple of weeks ago.’ Mom countered with ‘You must have learned fast ’cause you looked like experts to me.’ I told her it hadn’t taken us long to become pretty good at it.”

And now he must sleep, and she must wait “for the rest of the 10 billion words I’d like to write to hint a little at how much I love you and miss you.”

Like Dot, he wishes he could sleep until their separation is over.

He fills in the back of a page with a rough sketch of the house plans he found.

Dot writes a quick note before class, followed later by a three-pager.

She writes, “I feel ever so much more sure of myself in English since we got some of our papers back. One was marked ‘very good,’ and the other ‘superior work.’ (Mind if I blow my own whistle for a few moments?) We had another tough assignment last night, so perhaps I’d better keep my big mouth shut ’til we get the results of that work.” There she goes again, doubting her abilities in the face of strong evidence that she’s well equipped to succeed.

She dreads saying goodbye to him on Saturday, but she’ll try to be philosophical by remembering her mother’s words, “If he doesn’t go back, how can he get out of the Navy?” She prays his discharge comes as quickly as Gordon’s did. I suspect it won’t. Gordon had more time on active duty than Dart, plus he nearly lost his arm in battle. Dart has not been so “lucky.”

She begins the next letter of the day with a wish that she could call him while she still has the chance. Her second paragraph finds her sulking again because she did call, but there was no answer. She hopes he’s having a good time, wherever he is.

She stopped by the dispensary at school today to se if she could collect a Purple Heart for her thumb. While the doctor doubted that was possible, he did give her a diagnosis: ringworm. He dressed it with a salve and instructed her to return every second day so he could change the dressing. He predicts she’ll survive, but she’ll have an ugly nail for a while.

Dart’s fiance just had 10 years cut off her life when the doorbell rang and someone yelled, “It’s a sailor!” Although she knew the improbability that it was him, she flew to the door to find one of her housemates with a jaunty sailor cap atop her head.

Dot begins to bemoan the fact that this may be the last letter she’ll send to his parents’ address, but she stops herself. The last several weeks have been so perfect, and their lives are working out so well that she refuses to complain or ask for more. She’s confident that everything they hope for will come to pass – she just hope it’s soon!

She tells a funny story that happened in her house last night. “Eleanor had put a quart of milk on the window sill and asked Phyllis to see if it was cold yet. Phyll went over, and thinking there was a screen on the other side, pushed the milk bottle right off the edge and onto the ground. When we awakened this morning we found a note Janie had written: ‘The management requests that guests will please pay particular attention to food left on the window sills. Pedestrians are complaining.'” The girls have shown great ingenuity when it comes to managing food and meals in their house, but I guess they’ll have to learn to be more careful!

She tells Dart that she has come to the realization that his puns are not the worst in the world. Last night, Mid called to her from the bathroom, saying, “Dot, please come here and wash your hands. They’re ‘Darty.'”

After another unsuccessful attempt to call Dart, she sits in for a while on a discussion the girls are having. The topic is one she’s not too keen on – as she thinks Dart will understand. Listening to the girls, she’s even more grateful for Dart’s high standards and ideals. It’s my sincere belief that his are no higher than hers, which is one thing that makes them a perfect match.

Dart begins, “It’s now 0200. A fine time for a guy to be writing to his fiance. There’s a cheery fire in the gas grate. It’s cold as a dog’s nose outside. I know, ’cause I just lit the fire and I just came in from the great out-of-doors.”

He was delighted to hear Dot’s voice tonight, but even happier to hear her laugh. He discerns that she’s not as unhappy as she was a few weeks ago, and he predicts she’ll be feeling even better as she gets to know her new situation better. He understands her naturally ebullient nature, I think.

He’s nearly done with his original list of things to accomplish while on leave, but more things have been added. Tonight, Burke’s girlfriend Edie came over to the house with some pictures to show his folks. While she was there, his old pal from Shaw, Bob Cunningham dropped by. The two old friends had lots to tell each other about their time in the war and discovered they’d been to many of the same places. Before long, the doorbell rang again and revealed another high school chum, Bill Mather. He and Bob had not seen each other since graduation, so now the three young men had lots to catch up on.

Eventually both Bob and Edie left and Bill and Dart decided to go for a ride. They ended up at Manner’s hamburger joint and had a late night snack while they talked some more, until nearly 1:30. “Sinful, isn’t it, to sit around talking like that? Well, maybe not for Bill and me, but for you and me it would be sinful to sit and talk when we could be punctuating our paragraphs with kisses!”

“Goodnight, my Darling. How can I ever live without you until my discharge? Loving you, knowing you’re around, thrilling to your touch, and the proud feeling I get when I see you or think of you have become an inseparable part of my life.”

Dot writes, “Hey, Sailor! You sounded so cheerful and happy over the phone tonight it made me feel that way too. Gee, but your voice is soothing. It’s so gentle and yet so masculine. Thanks for calling and for talking so long. And congratulations on gettnig the article in the P.D. Who knows, maybe you’ll have some of your articles in there some day.”

She asks him what made the Navy so generous all of a sudden, but I don’t know what that means. Perhaps some news on early discharges? Anyway, she hopes they’ll decide he doesn’t need to go overseas again.

She can’t wait to see him one last time this weekend before he returns to Norfolk. She’ll make plans now to tell him exactly how much she loves him.

Dart begins, “What a life! Drunken gutter sluts coming in all night; dirty, rusty decks; lousy, over-seasoned chow; same old Haggard. Except for one thing; about 50 men have already been transferred, leaving a big hole in the crew.”

Sounds a bit grumpy, our boy. One thing that interest me, though, is that he refers to some of the sailors as “sluts.” In my experience, that word has generally been limited (unfairly, in my opinion) to describing females. Dart was a bit ahead of his time, perhaps, in making it an equal-opportunity word.

He goes on to report that the Haggard will be decommissioned within two weeks and then sold for scrap. Nearly all of the men who have been transferred from her crew have been assigned to sea duty, including some that were just 1/4 point shy of earning a discharge. Some men may stay with the Haggard even after she’s decommissioned, but Dart doesn’t expect to be included on that list. But what good will his hard-won combat skill as a fire contollman be during peacetime? Who needs to know how to calculate the trajectory of a big gun on a ship?

He withdrew his entire pay of $59.00 this morning, plus an additional “subsistence” pay of $19.50 for meals while on leave. I think both those numbers are for an entire month. I’m glad the Navy’s been so generous with liberties lately because you sure can’t say much for their pay scale!

He and Hal Martin are planning to go out on liberty in a few hours. Fortunately, they’ve been assigned to the same liberty section. They’re happy that Hal has his car with him again, but they’re worried. (About what, he doesn’t say, but maybe there’s a concern that if Hal gets sent to sea, there’ll be no time to get his car back home where it can be tended by his family.) At any rate, they hope to drive the car home at first opportunity.

Dart’s frustrated that he’d like to pitch a little woo in this letter, but he’s surrounded by a bellowing crowd of “sea gulls” that have killed the mood. Instead, he tells Dot he’s glad they haven’t been married yet because he would have brought her to Norfolk with him. “That would have been bad, but to have men from this ship within 50 miles of you would have been even worse. I wouldn’t feel safe if you were within the same city as these rapacious, drunken, noisy, obscene, stupid, crude, inconsiderate, worthless animals who comprise the ‘backbone; of the Haggard’s crew.” Wow! He’s on a tear today.

He tells about the many letters that were awaiting him when he arrived back from leave. Most of them were from friends and classmates who’d not heard about Dot and Dart’s engagement. Dart looks forward to spreading the “joyous news.”

He writes his new address and signs off with the new “Let’s go!” that both he and Dot have been adding to their letters of late. When I asked Mom what that was all about she explained an incident that happened on Dart’s pre-leave visit to Greenwich. They were sitting in a car late one night, just talking. Suddenly, a policeman shone a bright light into the window and bellowed “Let’s go!” They may have been embarrassed or indignant, but they turned the episode into a little private joke. Cute.

Dot had just been walking across campus trying to calculate the earliest she might get a letter from Dart when she arrived home and was handed a letter from him, a day before her earliest estimate. She’s grateful to him for writing so promptly and she’s glad to learn that the train trip back was better than he’d expected.

Her house is buzzing with excitiemnt. Phyllis, the girl in slacks who was playing the piano when Dart was there, went home for the weekend and came back engaged! The wedding is set for February 10th. Dot is a little dubious, because when Phyl left for home on Friday, she was pretty sure she was in love with someone else. Still, when Ron asked her for the 15th time to be his wife, she was struck like a bolt out of the blue and decided to accept. She hasn’t told her folks yet, and she fears they’ll be less than enthusiastic about the sudden plans. What Dot questions the most, however, is Phyl’s decision about school: she’ll leave after the first quarter, which will really do her no good at all, but if she withdraws this week, she’d receive 80% of her money back from Kent. Practical Dot would go for the cash! Why is it that girls felt they couldn’t go to school and be married at the same time?

Now, she teases, she’s sitting here with no hope of being married in less than three years. She reminds Dart that he once talked about getting married before she was “of age” (21) but it seems that idea is just a dream. “Even if I had to wait ten years (Heaven forbid!) I’d be luckier than any other girl in the world.”

There’ll be a formal dance on November 3 and she’d love it if he could attend. She says to bring the admiral along if Dart thinks he’d like it.

She’ll need to ignore him for about 24 hours while she at least pretends to study for her biology test. After telling Dart to stay healthy, happy and hoping for a discharge, she signed off. Then added a P.S.: Dart’s mother just called to say that she and Pop were worried about Dot’s gas stove because it doesn’t look to be properly vented. Dot assured them that it had been taken care of, but she was touched that they cared enough to worry. She tells Dart again that she loves him and she loves his family.