This sailor admits that his morale is at a low, low ebb. The Navy has just announced that as of November 1, 41 points is the magic number for discharge. He never mentions how many points he has, but it must be far below that number. I suspect Dot keeps as close an eye on his “score” as he does, because the sooner he’s released from duty, the sooner he can return to school, find a job and marry her.

He, Martin and Cotton just returned from a liberty to Camp Peary, near Williamsburg, Virginia. There, they located Hal’s friend that they’d missed before. He and a buddy of his joined them for  dinner and the 52 mile drive to Richmond.

“Williamsburg is famous for being an accurate reproduction of an early American town. All the buildings; stores, houses, inns, etc. are patterned after their counterpart at the time of the American Revolution. It gives the city a quaint and quite picturesque appearance. Even the A&P supermarket is in an old style building and has an old fashioned sign out front.”

After exploring the area and getting a little lost, the boys refreshed themselves with burgers and orange Crush before heading back to Camp Peary and Norfolk.

“Notice how much we eat on our liberties. With all the candy and sweets I’ve eaten in the past two days, my face should be one huge pimple by the end of the week. Perhaps the craving for food and candy is a hold-over of the habit of eating good food at home, and of the sweetenes of our leave with family, friends, and sweethearts.”

Arriving at the navy yard just before midnight, they discovered they were hungry again. “There’s a store near the gate that sets up regulation, prewar banana splits, so we each had a banana split and a milkshake. All this with the weather outside being cold enough to freeze the ears off a brass monkey.” (Apparently his low morale has not dampened his apetite, nor his gift for writing humorous lines.)

They boarded the ship shortly after their midnight snack, but now, at 3:30 AM, the drunks still have not stopped coming aboard and awkening Dart. He mentions a 7-letter word (without actually writing that word) that is used to describe these “inconsiderate bums.”

Recently, Dart and Hal went into town for dinner and some movies. They saw “State Fair,” and “The Enchanted Cottage,” both of which Dart says were good films, but neither of which did a thing to improve the morale of “two dispirited sailors.” He had high praise for Spring Byington’s acting – able to create such a universally unlikeable character.

“But as good as both pictures were, they made me think more than is healthy of you. Each time I saw the girl touch the arm of the person she loved, I felt that it was you touching me. Each time there was an embrace or a tender love scene, I remembered the times when we’d been in the same mood, saying and doing what amounted to the same things. … Oh, Dot, how I miss you! The days now are, and will be until I’m with you permanently, worthless, useless, boring and merciless.”

He tells her that he had intended to write a long dissertation on his loathing of the Navy, sounding just like Fred when he lashes out at the Army. Instead, he simply says “I detest the tyranny and arbitrary, unthinking rule of human beings, whether the tyrant be an educated person with great influence, or an untutored bumpkin with the total brain power of a bantum rooster.”

He begs for her indulgence and patience as he works through this mood.

Dot begins her letter on the 16th but finishes it the following day, due to some after-dinner activities. “There was a house presidents’ meeting scheduled for 7:00 over at Kent Hall. After we’d sat there for 45 minutes, someone got the brilliant idea of calling the dean who told us the meeting had been postponed for two weeks. Sounds a bit like the Navy, doesn’t it?”

She’s overwhelmed with school work, especially English. She worked on that one class diligently for over three hours tonight and is still not finished with her homework. “Sure I want to learn my English, and learn it well, but I didn’t ask to learn it all in three weeks!”

She admits that she shouldn’t gripe about classes when he would give anything to be back in college. She says it isn’t too bad, except that she worries about her English grade. Her mother would be terribly disapponted if her college grade in that subject should drop below a B.

She’s not too happy about the prospect that he’ll be sent back to sea. Although her family reminds her that with the war over, his absence won’t be as hard to bear, she’s still not happy with the idea. Why can’t they send someone who hasn’t already risked his life hundreds of times for his country?

With a class to get to and homework to complete, she must sign off. She sends her regards to Hal Martin and thanks him for letting Dart get such good use out of his car. She suggests that if they’re able to drive that car back to Hal’s home in Boston, he should stop by Greenwich to see her family. They’d love to have more time with him.

She’ll tell him more tomorrow, including the answer to his question that, indeed, made her blush in fron of her roommates.

Here’s a quick, newsy letter from Dart. He and Hal and Cotton will leave soon for a 72-hour liberty to Weston. (I think that’s Hal’s home in the suburbs of Boston.) Dart explains that the latest policy on 72-hour liberties is that they begin at noon on Fridays but if things align properly, guys can sometimes leave on Thursday night after their duty. That means that the three pals should be able to drive all night and get to their destination before their liberty officially begins!

He writes that the Haggard has been marked up all over with red paint to show wher the hull will be cut to remove built-in equipment like the computer and the gyros. They’ve spent lots of time this week indexing all the tools and equipment. Anything that was deemed surplus was piled on the fantail and available to be hauled away on a first-come, first-served basis. Officers and enlisted were on equal footing in the “grab-and-go” marathon. Dart snagged himself some small motors, tools and electrical parts. He could have had some telephones, too, but those he would have had to steal. “What robbers and scavengers we all turned out to be!”

He warns that letters from him may be scarce this weekend while he’s on liberty. He adds cryptically that her friend Janie sounds sensitive enough to be a good writer. “That’s why your letters are so good.” Whatever could he mean by that?

Dot’s letter is also brief. There’s a quick explanation about her only mail being a letter from herself to Dart that was returned for more postage.

She has to study for an English exam tonight. The only reason she cares about her grade is that she wants it to be as high as Dart’s grades always were. As she tries to cram grammar into her brain, the girls in the house are having a jam session downstairs, practicing their jitter bug to the loud phonograph. Dot expresses the hope that she’ll someday learn to jitter bug because it looks like such fun.

From now on, Dart can call her Robin Hood. She had all seven arrows hit the target today in archery class, and two of them were bull’s eyes. She likes archery more than soccer, but the real thrill is tap dancing. She claims that she and Mid are looking more and more like the Rockettes every day. (Followed by a sarcastic laugh.)

She writes a paragraph about the bank proposition; it’s working better than she thought it would. People are putting lots of pennies in, almost always with a comment about what the penny should be used for. Maybe it’s some sort of money-raising scheme for improvements around the house. I’ll see if that’s something Mom recalls from her 70-year old memories.

What a beautiful letter from Dart. He starts by describing the trip he, Hal Martin and Ira Cotton made from Norfolk, Virginia to Weston, Massachusetts. “What a beautiful and friendly country we live in! The ferry trip from Norfolk to Cape Charles was made in bright moonlight on a calm stretch of water. I hope you have a tiny idea of how homesick it made me. Oh, Darling, I wish you were with me. We  drove all night. Cotton drove from Cape Charles to the ferry across the Delaware River, 35 miles below Philadelphia. I drove from there through New Jersey and New York City. As we crossed the Henry Hudson Bridge, the sun was just getting up from its bed of fog. I let Hal take over as we stopped for the toll house at Greenwich. Since we were on our way to here, we didn’t stop to call on your parents. but I wish we could have.”

“Connecticut and Massachusetts are really beautiful this weekend. Today was bright and clear. The trees range in color from the yellow shade which would make a well-bred canary go mute with envy, all the way to the red as deep as the maroon on Hershey’s chocolate wrapper. Evergreens stand out among the reds, yellows and browns.”

He tells her that if tomorrow is as nice, they plan to drive up to Lake Sunapee, New Hampshire. Although he’d like to see the place for the first time with Dot, he welcomes the chance to lay his eyes on their future honeymoon spot.

“Dot, I miss you so much I can hardly eat, sleep, or do anything. To leave you is to leave part of my life behind. I wish I were able to enjoy the full portion of my life all at once. But part of it’s there with you in Kent. That’s the fire and the spirit. The dispirited body exisits where I am, only in the hope of being with you again, and forever, as soon as possible.”

Dot begins her second letter of the day to Dart. The first one was just “one of those moody letters I write periodically which would have done neither of us any good.  However, it’s 11:30 PM and I’m feeling much better.” (Her “moods” are both rare and short-lived. She was a good role model for so many people then, and continues to be so today.)

She and Ellie are the only girls in the house this weekend which will give her a good chance to work through her stacks of washing, ironing and sewing. Phew! As if she doesn’t have enough school work to occupy her time!

This evening she tried to call Dart’s parents, but there was no answer so she’ll try later in the weekend. She loves to talk with them about the person they all love so much – Dart.

She was happy to read in his long letter that arrived today that he  loved “The Enchanted Castle” as much as she did. It’s just one more thing they have in common. As proof that they have a lot in common, she refers to the way they kissed each other in that “special way” without either of them having said anything about it beforehand. Further proof is that they get along, enjoy the same music and have similar humor and they share the same standards and ideals. That sounds like a pretty good list so far, and they’re only getting started.

When he says he thinks of her more than is healthy, she can relate because she does the same thing. She’s eager to know when their thinking of today will become their reality of the future. Sometimes she feels as though waiting another month would be impossible, yet the months keep passing by. Can he believe it’s been a whole month since they were enjoying that full moon in the park together?

It sounds as though he and his buddies are getting enough to eat, although she wouldn’t vouch for the nutritional value of their intake. Still, the girl who exists on bread, jelly and Nescafe has no room to talk. “My stomach can take the chow alright, but it’s another story how well my brain comprehends English. But let’s not spoil a lovely evening talking about that foul subject.”

She wonders what would she do without her dreams of him and their future? Her life began with him and if she were to lose the dreams of him, it would be like losing her life. “I love you so very much. Looks kinda lifeless on paper, doesn’t it? But believe me, it comes from the same heart and lips that told it to you a week ago.”

Her every prayer is that he won’t have to go overseas again, but if it should happen, she will know it’s for the best. Everything that’s happened to them so far has worked out for the best. “We have been two extremely lucky people and we must never fail God in showing him our gratitude.”

She hopes he’ll have a chance to see her family this weekend, but even more that they’ll get to see him. For now, the little men are tugging at her eyelids, so she must sleep.

Dart’s entries today are two postcards from Lake Sunapee. One shows a full moon over the lake islands, and the other is an aerial view from the southern point of the lake. It’s a beautiful place, resplendent in its fall colors. He asks “Can it be any more beautiful in the spring or summer?”

So glad he shares Dot’s appreciation of this special place.

Dot’s letter is even briefer than two postcards. She’s terribly busy but didn’t want to break her writing streak. Tomorrow she’ll devote to ironing, studying and wrtiting to him.

She was waiting for a phone call from Greenwich tonight, still hoping he’d be able to visit her family. Sadly, no phone call has come.

Her last line may be directed as much to herself as to her fiance’: “Cheer up! The best is yet to come.”

There’s a lot happening with Dart’s correspondance today. First, a final postcard sent from Lake Sunapee where de describes the cottage he thinks might belong to her family. He is as smitten by the lake as Dot hoped he would be. The next letter is written that afternoon after the boys return to Norfolk for a final tour of the Haggard. Finally, a letter giving her his new address for when he’s assigned to a new ship very shortly. Let’s look at that first letter from Norfolk.

He learned through a phone call to Dot’s family from Penn Station today that the cabin he thought might be theirs was not the right one, but he reinterates how much he loves the lake nonetheless.

Now he and Hal Martin have learned they are on the 5:30 transfer list; perhaps that’s the list that will be posted at 5:30? I’m not really sure.  He has very little time before taking the bus to the receiving station here at the navy yard. That’s where he hopes to learn a little more about what comes next.

He thanks her for the wonderful snapshots she included in the letter that was awaiting his return to camp. His love for her continues to grow, and in equal measure, his longing for her. He counts himself immeasurably lucky to have won the heart of a girl such as her. While he packs his bag, she should consider herself tenderly kissed and greatly missed.

In the secondl etter, he’s able to give her his new mailing address at Norfolk. The new information he received is that he has 27-1/4 points and anyone with fewer than 39 points must return to sea duty, unless he has more than three years at sea. Dart’s overseas pay increase was suspended this morning until he gets another ship.

The Haggard has been chopped and cut all over her decks now. Dart says that in a few weeks, his ship will be an ex-ship. Now he’s heard that the men will have some choice in the kind of ship they get assigned to next. If that turns out to be a true rumor, he’s unsure how he’ll respond. Would another distroyer feel more like “home,” or would he prefer the new experience of a different type of ship? “I’ll be dissatisfied either way because I have a bad case of discharge fever, and I’m not afraid to admit it.”

After going into a lot of detail about the nice, new barracks he’s staying in tonight, he bids her an affectionate farewell. “Wish we could enjoy this moon together. Perhaps we are enjoying it together, only not with each other. I like to think so, anyway.”

At least this moon can be enjoyed while they are both in the same time zone. For now, it looks like another adventure is about to begin and another separation is inevitable.

Dot’s letter is a mostly silly, rambling thing. She went to lecture/poetry reading tonight by Robert Frost. I’m envious that she actually got to hear one of my favorites read his own work. Anyway, she has to write an essay on him for English tomorrow, as well as study for biology.

There’s a little news on the school front; she got an A on her first science test and an S on every English theme she’s received back. But the big news is that Miss Garnett, the nasty English professor noticed Dot’s diamond today and complimented her on her beautiful ring. To Dot’s surprise, she even smiled when she said it!

Roommate Eleanor has taken to being a brat toward Dot. Last night she turned all of Dart’s photos face down and threw the photos of Dot’s parents on the floor. Tonight she’s whistling while Dot tries to write this letter, knowing how much it bugs Dot. Through it all, our heroine is just ignoring her, pouring her wrath out on the paper instead of confronting the roomie and escalating the situation.

Lacking much else to say, she made a pretense of chastising Dart for his lapse in a recent letter. Although he’s shown a strong tendancy toward expressing his love for Dot over nearly two years, she couldn’t help but notice that he neglected to place his stamp on upside down on a recent letter. Remember that trick she taught him way back near the beginning of their relationship? There was a kind of pop language of stamps that developed around the time of WWII, including the secret meaning “I love you” indicated by an upside down stamp on a letter.

Reminding him of her love, she settles down to study.

In this long letter from Dart, he has a lot to grouse about. Imagine his joy to learn he had landed the duty of keeping those shiny new bathrooms he’d admired yesterday clean. Well, somebody has to do it, and if he does it long enough, he may end up less disgruntled about sea duty!

His second complaint is about the cloudburst that soaked the navy yard today. “Filled the streets and walks to ankle depth…and we had to traipse around in all that sop to get our check-in interviews at the classification center, the war bond office, the insurance office and tha medical department. After all that, I learned just in time to go to the mess hall for an early dinner because I had to stand a 4 to 8 watch outside. Luckily the rain stopped in time for the setting sun to cast a huge double rainbow, so the whole day wasn’t wasted.”

Dart heard from Fred, who has either gone ‘off his beam,’ or has gotten lazy, because he has decided not to write any more letters until after he’s discharged. He told Dart that he’s only able to write bitter diatribes about his branch of the service and if he ever wants to be a different sort of guy, he needs to start being that now. He’ll devote the remainder of time in the Marines to sleeping and sketching.

Dart was, indeed, allowed to indicate his choice in assignments. He requested 1) shore duty along the east coast, 2) battleship duty, and 3) large aircraft carrier duty. But all of his staff reccomendations were for sea duty and since his points are so low, he knows he’ll be sent back to sea. Now, as a year ago, the only real question is when, and on what.

He asks Dot to take it easy sharing his writings with others. He’d like to use some of the stuff he’s written as background for stories he writes in the future, when people are not so tired of reading war stories. He’s glad she thinks they’re good enough for wide distribution, though.

His penny collection has suffered from malnutrition. It’s growing, but far too slowly. “I must remember to order odd-priced items on the menu and to ride seven-cent street cars instead of 10-cent buses. Wire is about three or four cents a foot, so with our pennies, we can have at least that. When we have three or four hundred feet of wire, I’ll figure the cost of window glass or of a cubic yard of excavating or something like that and we can save nickels and pennies.” It would appear they’ve decided to buy their house piecemeal!

His earlier mood seems to have lifted, perhaps just from writing to Dot. He tells her about his wonderful 72-hour liberty with Hal and Ira. The weather was beautiful, New England was clear, fresh and colorful and they had some great meals. While he was away, he and Ira were able to crate up the stuff they “stole” from the Haggard and shipped it to their home addresses. His favorite part was seeing the harvest moon over Lake Sunapee and dreaming of the day he will share such an experience with Dot.

In response to her letter, he assures her that if there were some way for them to stick to their plan and get married before she was 21, he’d do it. There’s a chance, but not much of one. He would have to be discharged in time to begin school next September, all of his poor grades from Case would have to be accepted as credit at another college, he’d need to complete 2-1/2 years of classes in 18 months and he’d have to secure a good job. He fears that three years down the road is probably a close guess for their nuptuals.

He regrets to inform her that neither he nor the admiral are able to attend her formal dance on November 3.

Saying goodnight to her now via letter feels easier to him than having to say goodnight to her when she was in his arms. “I’d much rather have it so that our goodnights could be murmured in the midst of an all-night, all time embrace. So goodnight, my love, my own Dot.”

Dot is so happy that she started her daily letter to Dart in the early morning before leaving for classes. What caused this euphoria? The simple fact that he has seen Lake Sunapee and loves it as much as she does. “How can our life together be anything but perfect when we start out in such a Heavenly place as that? ”

Her next paragraph, written later in the day, is a bit gloomier. She’s terribly blue that he’ll be going overseas again. She knew it was likely, but she prayed they wouldn’t have to endure yet another long-distance separation. But immediately, she rallies and tries to look on the bright side. “When the time comes that we may be together always, think how much more it will mean to us after having lived through such periods of lonliness.” That’s our girl.

She tells him how much his phone call to her folks meant to the family and then signs off to study…you guessed it…English.

Dart’s unit has received no mail since they moved off the ship and into temporary barracks. He expects to be among 50 men transferred tomorrow to the Naval Operating Base for temporary duty, so his address should remain the same for a while. He’s not looking forward to temp duty, because he’s likely to get either mess hall or deck hand.

He’s spent the evening writing lots of letters, including a 12-pager to his folks. Although he warned Dot that he wouldn’t be calling her on Wednesday, he now feels guilty and homesick for not having called her.

He goes on a little rant about how much he hates being in the Navy and concludes there’s no point in pitching a fit because there’s nothing to be done except await discharge “and we have a place of our own where we can be secluded and happy or where we can invite people who are not uncouth.”

That House Presidents’ meeting she wrote about sounds just like Navy efficiency. He pities her. He urges her to quit worrying about grades because, as he’s always suspected, she does well in English. From what he can tell from her letters, she’s really digging in to college classes and doing her best, which is all anyone can be expected to do.

There’s nothing else he can write about tonight. He loves her and misses her, but he’s at a loss as to how to express it. He fills the fourth page with one of his funny little sketches of a soggy sailor standing watch over a trash can in the driving rain. A good metaphor for his mood, I’d say.

“Just a wee note tonight to let you know I’m thinking about you constantly and I’m wondering what the Navy has decided to do with you. Oh, if we could only have one of our long talks tonight, I’d feel so much better. I’ve got to get mail from you tomorrow so I’ll know where to send my letters and so I won’t have this awful feeling of ‘not knowing.'”

She misses him terribly and wonders when she can speak her love to him in person. She dares to hope he’ll be discharged by next spring.

One of her housemates went out tonight with her “feller” and came back with a “sparkler.” Of course, it’s not as pretty as Dot’s ring, but Dot had the grace not to mention that fact. It seems as though engagements are a near daily occurrence at Kent State University these days. I guess it’s all that pent up demand that was delayed by the war.

She’s going to bed early because she feels positively rotten, “But it’s not what you think, so who’s blushing now?” she asks. Yes, I think that confirms that their previous musing about a topic that made he blush must have been about her monthly cycle.

She signs, “All my love, all my life.”

Dart’s mood doesn’t seem to have improved much. Last night, he and Hal Martin were both so disgusted with this place that they decided to go to the bottom of the “hole,” namely the actual town of Norfolk.

“We ate dinner, looked at the 1946 Ford, saw a movie, walked around with the aroma of the fertilizer plants doing frightful things to our noses and stomachs, and then we came ‘home.’ My comment: Norfolk doesn’t need the fertilizer and glue factories to make it smell.”

They learned that Norfolk actually has a live symphony orchestra, but the concerts are attended only by Norfolk’s snootier citizens. Sailors need not try getting in.

The movie they saw was  “Her Highness and the Bellboy,” which was fun and entertaining. It was their entire enjoyment for the week.

No mail today.

Dot writes this letter before her 10:00 AM class, telling Dart of a meeting she and Mid attended last night. It was the organizational Health, Phys Ed Club and she had lots of fun. Although the girls outnumbered the boys by about 2-to-1, they still had a mixer to get people acquainted. Her first dance was with “Tiny,” a guy who was anything but. Next to his 6′ 7″, 350 pound frame, Dot felt like a dwarf, but she had loads of fun. The root beer and donuts were the finishing touch on the evening.

She’s not happy that both she and the Navy have designs on the same man. She feels that the battle is weighted in favor of the Navy, so there’s nothing she can do but sit back and wait for him to be available to her. She can only hope that all the weeks to come fly by as fast as this past week did.

Sounding a lot like her fiance, she says she’s sick of the hole she lives in. She’s thinking about calling Helen Peterson to ask if she’d like someone to come to her house next weekend to do dishes. Dot misses Dart’s parents almost as much as she misses him.

Another letter just arrived from Dart in the morning delivery, but she must dash off to archery class, where she made three bull’s eyes last time. Also, her physical science came back with a B on it, but she dreads learning her fate on the recent biology exam.

She’ll try to get a long letter off to him soon, explaining in detail how much she loves him.