Radio mirror (Jan-June 1948)

« 9 By BOB HOPE WELL here it is Auld Lang Syne time again,, ladies and gentlemen, time for us aU to resolve to keep hope in our hearts (and on the screen and radio) for a bigger better New Year. Should Auld Aquaintance Be Forgot? That's a pretty personal question when you come right down to it, and when you come right down to it I can think of two, my income tax man, and a certain auld chubby one I'd like to forget . . . but his fans won't let me. Father Time with a golf club in his hand. . . . Wonderful place America, a land of golden opportunity. Where else could a guy just ask for the blue of the night and the gold of the day and have to back up to Paramount in a truck on Thursdays to hatd all his money home? Not that I have anything against singers ... I tised to sing myself before I started working for a living ... in fact that's why I started working for a living. It all happened when I was employed in the parts department of a motor company in Cleveland, and sang into the boss's dictaphone one day when he wasn't looking and forgot to shave it off. The next time he turned it on to talk to his secretary he heard "You're Nobody's Sweetheart Now" . . . and I wasn't. I'm glad he fu-ed me, for I've been working at Paramoimt studios for nine years now and I've enjoyed every dollar of it. Yes, America is a land of golden opportunity. ... And while we're on this subject let's hope that 1948 will set more opportunities spread around among the half a million stUl unemployed guys and gals who wear a golden lapel pin for their letter of recommendation, those who quit their jobs to do a bigger one for us. How about hoping too for a break for the two million veterans who are in colleges and trade schools, by-passing football and fraternities and burning the midnight oil in their eagerness to make up for lost tiine. Let's remember . . . and hope we can hand them something besides a diploma when they get out. . . . New Year's is always memory time, anjrway, some we're thankful for, others that we're not . . . includ ing the new fashions and the last year's resolutions « we forgot to keep. Not that I reaUy mind the new long skirts on the ladies, it just means you have Jo' use your imagination, something we haven't had to use in a long time. . . . As for resolutions, I'm not making many this year, but I do promise not to do any mgre California driver jokes on the radio. The mere fact that the Chamber of Commerce threatened to have my license ^ taken away from me has nothing to do with it. Ajjd I also promise myself to get a Uttle more rest, spend more time with my family, not work so hard, and let the guys in Washington get their money from somewhere else. It's getting embarrassing have Linda and Tony kiss me "Goodbye, Daddy" every time I come home. The poor kids haven't known whether I'm coming or going . . . but I'm going to see more of them this coming year. . . . They're great little Joes, these kids of yours and mine, living in this age of robots and rebop; they're our hope for 1948, 1958 and aU time to come. Our white hope, bright and shiny, for all their jalopies, pedal pushers, T-shirts, and bubble gum. There's more cooking there than the valves in those hot rods, as I've rediscovered when we get together down at the "Iceberg," a super-icecream parlor in North Hollywood, run by Van Diepen, an ex-Torpedo Man 3/c I first met on the P.T. Boat base on Mioswoendi Island in the Pacific. I always believe in patronizing businesses run by ex-servicemen; the fact that he was giving the ice cream cones away that first day I dropped in made no difference, I only had twelve. I was sitting on the ledge out in front of the store eating one when one of my new twelveyear-old friends barged up. "Well . . . if it isn't the Funny Man . .• . how'd you get that?" he said. "I went in on my knees," I explained. Then I got down and went in for two more, he was large for his age. But seriously I have a great time talking with these kids at our cone-bakes, and get into some very enlightening {Continued on page 63) Coming up — a New Year. Here's a look at It through the wit-colored spectacles of a funny man who knows when it's time to be serious Listen to Bob Hope Tuesday nighto at 10:00 EST, on NBC stations 2T