An Accident, Sinatra's Last Show, An Auto Show, The Kraft and Pulitzer Playhouse

April 3, 1952

Dear Andrew and John,

Virginia gave me the pictures she took of the kids at church yesterday morning and then picked them up in the afternoon to send you, I believe. There's one pretty good of Stevie crying but the one with Ann on it we've begged her not to send. I finished my roll of Kodachrome on Sunday, put it in the mail to Washington on Monday afternoon about 5:15 and Ann tells me noontime that today (Thursday) they are back -- finished, I hope. She put them right away because Mike was present but I told her to open them if she got a free moment this afternoon and I will learn the results when I call her at five for tonight is school.

Had my first accident with our car going in yesterday morning with Abe and Ruth Schlosser, who Abe had as a rider and whose $1 per week we split toward gas. Anyway, at Frederick Avenue and Fonthill Avenue, just before Gwynns Falls, below Carroll Station; that road at the end of Mt. Olivet Cemetery where there is a sign pointing to the Oriole Gun Club or some name like that, there is some repair work going on by the Baltimore Transit, working in the tracks and blocking the road to the right with piles of dirt and equipment. A streetcar had stopped there, waiting for the men to clear out of the way and we came to a stop behind it. Some fellow, who later told me he was track foreman, was standing in the westbound tracks and flagged us to come around that side of the car. We started slowly around the left side of the car and he continued to wave us on. Abe and I were watching a car coming toward us and the motorman in the trolley didn't see the fellow flagging us on and started, brushing our right front fender and right front door. I took down the necessary information and brought the car right in to the Auto Clinic where my friend, Don Rous, told me who to call at the Baltimore Transit. There is a grapefruit sized dent in the fender, a scrape on the chrome side molding and a slight dent and paint marks on the door. I mentally estimated the damage about $25 and nearly passed out when the Auto Clinic presented me, while I waited, with an official estimate of $139.98. When I got back to the office I saw they had put on for an entire front grill where there is a marble sized dent where some jerk bumped me last October in the parking lot and a new front bumper, which is perfectly OK. These two items alone come to $100. Nevertheless, I wrote the Transit Co. and sent them the estimate. Don called me yesterday afternoon, which was before I mailed the letter, and told me a representative of the company had already looked the car over. Of course, I drove it home and nothing will he done to it till I find out if they come through but I am definitely going to be satisfied to get the bump out of the fender and door and not try to gyp them as someone we know who is in the meat business did, if I told you. This party I will not name got an estimate from Auto Clinic for $700, collected that amount from his insurance company and got the job done for $395.

I was reading this stuff in the paper last night about the new set up on rotation and no doubt you are in semi-preference rating as occasionally fired on. I don't get it how they can keep you any longer and still let them out after 21 months over here.

Did I ever tell you the new TV tube is working great. It even has something new added. The old one used to just go black but this one has that big flare up as you turn the switch to off and the gradual fade away to a pin point of light. It also has that no glare slightly bluish feature and with new springs for the knobs and the general overhaul we're keeping the kids away and not even letting Mike give it the works. I haven't been watching too much during the week but saw a couple of shows Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday was Frank Sinatra's last show, I told you they only present the first half hour from Baltimore so I switched to Washington for the last half. He had seven or eight celebrities dash on stage the final fifteen minutes besides his regular guests and among them were John's good friend, Jackie Gleason, Jack Leonard, Tony Curtis, Henny Youngman, Jack Durante, June Hutton and several I can't remember. Instead of Auto-Lite Tuesday, that is Suspense, I mean, the Auto-Lite company presented Ken Murray as MC at the auto show, in New York I think, and it was so pitiful we roared. The president of each car company would be introduced to Ken Murray and he would ask them features of their particular car. He called the new Studebaker a Willys, kept calling Mr. Kaiser Mr. Rambler and when he got to the Nash referred to it as a Dodge Vagabond. He has a girl whistler who sat in an old jalopy and while he held a mike in front of her, by mistake they turned on one by him instead and while the picture showed the gal, all you could hear was Ken's voice rapping out what they would do when she finished trilling. They had a show girl for each of the 16 cars presented and each was dressed to try and fit the part, like a Bee for the Hudson Hornet, while they advertised the car in rhyme. The one girl began, "I am Miss Packard Ultra-matic" and the following line which rhymed; then you could see they turned the wrong page on her. She did a double take and all she could do was repeat the above line twice more and finally made a face and bowed off with a sickly grin. Then we went to bed.

Last night, Wednesday, was the best ever for two shows following one another. The Kraft Playhouse from 9 till 10 presented Audrey Christie, Don Briggs and more that we knew in The Ryan Girl but the title can't begin to express how good it was. A synopsis: She is a famous singer and her husband sneaks into New York as a seaman from Venezuela where he has been hiding for seven years from killing a cop in N.Y. She can't help loving him. He returns because he read that their son, whom she had given to a wealth family when only a week or so old was an air hero and in N.Y. so he will expose the boy as his son and lean on public opinion to beat the killing rap. They don't let this happen, of course and it ends with A. Christie killing him in front of their TV set where he is watching the boy who doesn't know he is the father. Maybe it was the acting but we didn't move. The Pulitzer Playhouse which is now Wednesday from 10 to 11, presented Street Scene with Paul Kelly, Ann Dvorak, Coleen Gray and at least six others we recognized. I don't know when we enjoyed a quiet evening more. Perhaps because of the tension, but when it was over we were groaning with hunger.

Before I seal these I'll see what Ann, has to say about the transparencies.

END OF LETTER

Editor's notes:

Virginia is a friend of John's.
Abe is a lifelong friend of Charles.
The term "transparencies" probably means color slides.

Charles must have confused Don Briggs for Edmon Ryan in "That Ryan Girl".
Instead of the Pulitzer Playhouse Charles meant to say the Celanese Theatre. The show alternated the Wednesday night time slot with "Pulitzer Prize Playhouse"

Some of the Filmography links and data courtesy of The Internet Movie Database.

Next posting: April 8, 1952

Copyright 2012 Stephen A Conner

Daffodils, Snow, Molly Goldberg, A Communist and Frank Sinatra

Tuesday, March 4, 1952

Dear Andrew and John,

The letter John wrote last Monday, February 25, came in on Saturday -- just five days; and your letter of the 26th, Andrew, arrived yesterday. So the mails this way are fast indeed. Just for the fun of it, I have put in "an extra carbon and will send one copy of this letter to the old APO 660 and see if you get in while you are still in the south. In your letter of the 26th, Andrew, you mention getting and reading a Times. I hope this wasn't the only one received for we have sent the Sunday N. Y. Times movie section each week since the last of January and a few dailies when I pick one up downtown, now that Greyhound has discontinued the Union News stand. I am keeping on file a record of the date anything important or financial comes for you. For example, John's third bond is in; of course we cashed the one, but the other two are in the file and yesterday a small envelope came from Washington - just one - addressed to you, John, with a check for $30. I thought-it was the allotment you spoke of but there is a slip attached--a single piece of paper with a lot of fine print about Veterans Insurance, so this is evidently your insurance premium or rather dividend and no doubt Andrew's will arrive in another day or so. I have put several flash bulbs (#5) in a very strong container and shipped them air mail to 301 because paying all that cash for a few cents worth just about broke my heart. Cousin Claire 'phoned Sunday evening and I talked with her as I answered the 'phone. She is now OK but evidently Cousin Anna was out because she said that Cousin Ann had another severe equilibrium or however you spell it spell and wasn't so good. She wanted to know about sending you two a package and I said sure and gave her the new APO so here's something else to watch for. How about mentioning something that's easy for us to pick up but a little on the rare side there. Milk's no-go but what about canned milk or stationery; don't worry about the cash end on writing supplies or equipment of that type since I can probably get it through the office.

You know Ann doesn't see my letters and I don't read hers or Arlene's. Each of them got off two this past week so I guess we had something going out every day. If Ann hasn't already told you...... about two weeks ago she took the green flower box which I believe John picked up two years ago and filled it with (I counted them) 21 daffodils just as they peeked out of the ground. She put them on the kitchen radiator and you should see them go. I measured them Sunday at almost 9 1/2 inches - all except one which grew 2 in. very fast and then stopped. Each day that the sun is out she has to turn the box completely around because they will lean at a 30° or more angle toward the window. The gray days they remain straight. Last Thursday and Friday the temperature sored into the fifties. As late as 1 a.m. Saturday morning, so the Sun papers printed, the Baltimore Transit called the weather bureau to inquire about the possibility of snow for Saturday, thinking about chains and other equipment. The weather man said not a chance; so we awoke Saturday morning with about five inches on the ground and more falling. The afternoon warmed up and I dug the car out and took it to church Sunday. Saturday morning I walked up and slid down Frederick Avenue with Ted. He had bare tires on the rear and it took us over fifteen minutes to get over that little hump at Melvin Avenue and release the blocked traffic. Sunday night another three inches fell but it rained all day Monday and is still going strong this afternoon so most of it is gone.

I see Molly Goldberg is back on TV. Must be Thursday evening because I haven't seen it. John Crosby devoted one of his daily columns to the fact that what's-his-name who plays Mr. G was on the communist list and banned by the networks--that it wasn't Sanka who wanted to take the show off a year ago; so Molly pulled the whole thing off and tried to fight it out. She finally gave in, so Crosby says, when she realized they had been off almost a year and it meant keeping the others, who specialized in certain parts, out of work. He mentioned the fellow they have for a replacement and the fact that they have made him up to look like the old one as much as possible but as yet haven't given him much to say--will work him in gradually so people won't dislike the idea. You know, Frank Sinatra still doesn't have a sponsor. Last Tuesday, right in the middle of an act, they cut his show in Baltimore and put on something sponsored by General Electric from the Hippodrome stage; or did I tell you this in my short note last Thursday. Anyway, I see he's only scheduled for a half hour tonight.

Mrs. MacDonald was over last Saturday evening for about an hour and seemed real tickled that she had a letter from you, Andrew. She told us Mag had a birthday last week--seventy something; I didn't know she was the older. That old shack of a house and lot next to Sam the Tailor and across from Woolworth's where Gradys live has had an offer of $60,000 which somebody must want awful badly. - Abe's father has put the - apartment house in the hands of Schatz and is serious this time - about getting rid of it. I think Winnie is living with her mother including husband, of course.

Did Ann tell you the silly one about the school children that goes something like this: the teacher found a puddle outside the schoolroom door and suspected one of the kids. She told them she wanted the guilty one to clean it up but so as not to ridicule that party they were to sit at their desks and put their faces down on their folded arms while it was taken care of and that she would do likewise. They hid their faces and could hear someone tiptoe from the room and return in a few minutes. She had them raise their heads and went to check. There by the first puddle was a second puddle and above it, chalked on the wall, were the words "The Phantom Strikes Again". If you haven't read it, I thought it was cute.

Michael and Kathleen played in the snow for over an hour on Sunday. Or rather Michael did a little playing but Kathy would not move off the back cement piece which I cleaned - over the old well. It was quite a record for Mike for I believe I've told you how Ann says he doesn't like the cold. I saw what she meant on Saturday right after the, storm. He went out the side door, walked around the house and came in the back door, looked at me and said, "Well, that's enough of that".

After this soaking snow and with a few good warm days you'll really see the yard sprout. Right now it's the usual mess and there were no signs of anything other than the daffodils before they were covered. We were thinking of putting something on the bathroom floor and getting the you-know what fixed. I could put down some linoleum blocks, I'm sure, and I noticed that the old toilet from the cellar is under the back porch. The first nice day I will crawl back and ask Buzz or someone if it is worthwhile. This should be done before the floor.

The St. Francis novena began this morning so I brought a book home for Mommie. You are one of our intentions so take things easy.


END OF LETTER

Next posting: March 12 1952

Copyright 2012 Stephen A Conner