Monday, May 19 1952
Dear Andrew and John,
Ann has an unfinished letter to each of you home on the shelf she swears she will get off today. And over the weekend Arlene comes up with the fact she has written you four letters which she hasn't mailed. If they are still around, I am taking home postage this evening. I believe I can report all's well again, though Stephen took a bottle to bed with him last night and promptly threw it all up. We kept him up a little after that but he had no temperature and evidently it was just an upset stomach resulting, no doubt, from the way he buckets around the house. He's not as surefooted as Kathy and they like to spin in circles till they fall on their little faces. Mike still goes into trances every now and then - just thinking, he says. He is one you won't have to worry about forgetting you and Kathy still insists with violent shakes of her head that she remembers. The little slob takes to everyone and especially animals. Every dog we meet he has to hug and grunt over if it seems safe on our part, but regardless on his. The bigger the beast, the juicier he gets. Ann is getting more and more disgusted with cousin Pud, whom we haven't seen or heard from since the wedding and that was February. I try to get her to shrug it off and tell her the reason we saw so much of them was because it was a convenience and a half way point between Edgewood and Washington when Sam was on duty. But she's quite hurt by the silence. I talked to Mrs. MacDonald a little while on Friday when I took what's left of our ladder over for Claude to fix her roof. She just asked the latest word on you; seems well herself and continues to work a couple of days a week at that cleaners across from Westowne. Mary Bellis has it bad; a new fellow or rather of several months duration. Beyond the hand in hand stuff--sitting on his lap in the school field and necking on the side porch with no brickbats from the family. She graduates in June. The junk house of a gas station across the street is open for business once more. I don't recall telling you it shut down, but to repeat, if I did, the young fellow who was running it appeared to be doing well till one weekend right after Easter we saw the cops over there looking around and they kept coming back on foot and in a squad car. One of the Bellis' got the explanation that the kid had backed up a truck and cleaned the place out of all the supplies and equipment he had been renting or offered for sale. The dope who is running it now is living with a wife and a son back in the hole where Florence used to be. They have a large Buick which they service nightly at closing-up time. Last Thursday and Friday about 11 p.m. and again Saturday morning at 6:30 a.m. they were repairing either a broken muffler or something with the exhaust, with atomic-like explosions that wouldn't let us get to sleep and night and woke everyone, even the Bellis', extra early on Saturday.
You remember Schlitz used to have the Playhouse of Stars for an hour each Friday. It has been cut to a half-hour show since February but still presents well known stars. Friday night they did something different and something which in my opinion they can keep on doing--a musical, called "Autumn in New York" with Skip Homier, Polly Bergen and Don Briggs. It was well written and acted, some new music, some old like "April In Paris" and I was surprised how S. Homier can sing. I had heard of Polly Bergen before but only as being in a movie with Martin and Lewis which I didn't see; and her acting and voice were excellent.
Each day for the past week has had some rain. While it was dripping Saturday morning I painted the furnace and some of the pipes just in case and sealed up the drain again. Later, as it cleared, got some more grass out of the way. The roses are bursting forth all over and the peonies have more golf ball sized buds than I've seen. This year I'm leaving them strictly alone for you remember last year or was it the one before I sprayed away all the ants that cover the blossoms and didn't know that the ants eat mites which weren't killed but which destroyed half the partly opened flowers. In the afternoon took care of kids while Mommie went first to the hairdressers and then to Dr. Sherrard's to have a filling replaced which I think was loosened by this iron she is taking. We got the groceries, ate and got the kids ready for bed (not that they went). With baths and messing around I didn't see the All Star Review from 8 to 9 which had the Ritz Brothers but I tuned in to hear them announce Martha Raye for next week. We did see Show of Shows and they've turned a bit economy minded using Judy Johnson, Bill Hayes and I forget who else as m.c. for three weeks. Marguerite Piazza was soloist with the Baltimore & Ohio Glee Club here in Baltimore last Wednesday.
After S of S we watched London Films present Leo Genn in "The Wooden Horse" which turned out to be that story of how a small group of English flyers escaped from a Nazi prison camp by tunneling underground. I liked it because they didn't continually dwell on that one topic but got them out in a hurry and then traced their escape across Germany into Denmark and finally Sweden. The trailer for next Saturday showed scenes from "The Small Back Room", with names I can't remember.
I actually did remember to bring yesterday's Times in this morning; and will try to get some more show propaganda off to you before the week is over.
END OF LETTER
Editor's Notes
Mrs. MacDonald is a neighbor.
Some of the Filmography links and data courtesy of The Internet Movie Database.
Next Posting: May 28, 1952
Copyright 2012 Stephen A Conner
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