Radio Digest (June 1932-Mar 1933)

12 Letters To c ALLS IT I The Ladies, God Bless Them, Are His Best Correspondents By Edward Thornton Ingle — gracious me, what a time I have with all my mail ! Oh, how I love to hear from the .Old Guard! "There's something so heartening about a letter, especially a chatty and informal A VIRULENT and hilariously dangerous malady, now known to the best medical minds of our country as Per kins cribia, and commonly called Perkinuritis by the street, is sweeping the more the man land. From every mud flat, cactus patch, hay field, palm-fringed shore, filling station (hot dog or gas), drug store and homestead— from coast to coast — a seething sea of mail pours in like a Niagara upon the National Broadcasting Company headquarters in New York. True, not all of this amazing avalanche is directed at the sorrel-thatched subject of this sketch. But those who count the letters at NBC will tell you that the Old Topper receives thousands upon thousands of missives from a very substantial and important section of the vast radio public. The victim of Perkinscribia is first seized with laughing paroxysms that seem to grow more and more chronic, until at last the subject succumbs and then quite out of his mind subscribes his thoughts and feelings to paper. Thus is explained the mountain of fan mail that reaches the old chief of the Perkins Laboratories, Ltd., each week. "Where does it come from — all this mail? Playmate, you've caught your Uncle Ray in a mellow and sentimental spot. Why, my goodness, it comes from everywhere, North, East, South and West — Omaha, Neb., Zinc, Ark., Sebastopol, Cal., Zolfo, Fla., Ty Ty, Ga., Nez Perce, Ida., Amo, Ind., Zwingle, la., Boston, Ky., Paw Paw, Minn., Tushka, Okla., Prosperity, S. C. (I'm going down there and look for a hopeful citizen), Java, S. D., Bellbuckle, Tex., Winter Quarters, Utah, Nicldesville, Va., Wauzeka, Wis., and Meeteetse, Wyo. and a lot of other places communication," said the punning funster as he sat securely wedged between two mountain ranges of correspondence. "You know I always get the informal kind at the first of every month. 'Payment will be appreciated.' 'If you have already paid this bill, disregard this notice,' and other friendly missiles, I mean missives, of vicarious sorts," the old humorist went on. "Then there is the confidential communication from the Grand Old School. 'Doubtless you have had many demands made upon you, Mr. Perkins, but — ' and so forth and ad infinitum. 'The fraternity would like to hear again from Brother Perkins,' (they're always thinking of buying another house, or plastering the old one) and please could he help. "Of course there are the ladies! God bless them. And of these Ray Lamont Perkins can only say, they are my most faithful correspondents. I do hope I've said the right thing! As Queen Elizabeth said to Walter Raleigh, 'Keep your shirt on, kid, keep your shirt on!' "But seriously, folksies, there are real thrills in all the fan mail. Don't let anyone tell you it is just so much fodder for the paper bailer! I wouldn't trade some of the associations that have grown out of the mail for anything in the world." JLERRTNS speaks soberly of these. There's the blind woman in Baltimore who gains much from Ray's programs. She writes him regularly from a hospital there and offers excellent doggerel and humor for his broadcasts. There is the little crippled girl in Massachusetts and the postmistress in the isolated tiny