Letter # 382 May or June 1944

At Sea {this is a Sunday}
My Darling Wife;
Hi Mummy!  I love you, you sweet old devil.  I'm sending lots of love and everything.  Can you feel it?  I don't suppose so but I've so much of it that I have to get rid of it some way.  I'm keeping plenty for the time when ------.  Gosh, honey, I'm going to love you and love you and love you.  Not going to do much of anything else for a long time.  Won't even do as we've done on the furloughs, spend a lot of time seeing other people and going places.  There will be plenty of time for that.  I'm just going to get acquainted with you all over again and take plenty of time to do it too.  Boy oh boy! Are we going to have fun.  I may not be a kid anymore but I'm expecting to act like one.  Remember when we came back from Put-in-Bay the first time?  Like that only more so.  We're married now. 
The other night I was laying on deck waiting for it to cool off a bit down in the hold.  It was a beautiful moonlight night, with a few fleecy white clouds sailing along.  I watched them as they slid past the swaying masts for a while and then I fell to dreaming.  Not sleep dreaming but that nicer kind of dreaming when you are in a relaxed and comfortable mood, before bedtime and not sleepy or wanting to sleep.  Can you guess my dreams?  I bet you can, 'cause they were about that old but ever interesting subject.  The one that occupies the largest part of my thoughts.  You - and I.  I can't help it sweetheart, I love you.  We are the biggest thing that has ever happened to me.  Not being able to do anything else about it, I can dream.
One of the problems I was dreaming about was.  Would I have any preference as to the time of year I came home for good.  Silly question in the cold light of reason isn't it?  As though I would hesitate a minute in any time of the year!  Anyhow I was dreaming about it and rather seemed to incline to early spring, say March. 
At that time there wouldn't be a thing that would really require any of my attention and interrupt our getting well acquainted except firing the furnace.  Could even let that go and stay in bed couldn't we?  Then by the time spring came and other things, mowing lawn. and other inevitable domestic things forced themselves to my attention, why maybe we could attend to them without feeling too imposed upon.  Crazy, isn't it, but it makes a nice dream.  It is possible for it to even happen that way.  I'm really expecting and praying that this is our last separation and that when I come home again it is for good.  I'm keeping everything crossed and praying for it not to be longer. 
Yesterday we had a little break in the monotony.  It really rained almost all day.  Not a hard storm but a nice, cool, gentle rain.  The sea was very little rougher than ordinary.  It was just enough storm to break the oppressive heat.  It had been an exact duplication of last summer in La.  We had been having a hard time washing and taking baths.  The facilities are here but only salt sea water, and it's impossible to use soap with any success.  Couldn't get really clean.  Well, when the rain came it didn't take us long to strip and take a real honest to goodness bath in the rain.  Gosh it felt good.  I thought I had acquired a very dark suntan, but after getting clean again, I found I had washed off most of it.  Like a girl washing paint tan off her legs.  Rather funny to be in a world of water and have to take a bath in the rain. 
I didn't write yesterday because of the rain.  The deck is about the only place there is room to write, so instead of attending church services as I suppose I should, I'm writing to you and doing my worship of you.
Bye sweetheart, I love you so much.  You're my lovely wife and I'm your lover. 
your hubby.
Norm.
Norman W. Effinger.