Radio romances (July-Dec 1945)

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It's risky, meddling in other people's business. But when someone you love is not happy, and you can see so easily just how to help . . . 26 WHEN I tell you this story, you're going to get the idea that I'm one of those meddling, busybody women who's always poking into someone else's business. But I'm not — or I never was until I decided to interfere with Jim and Betty — until I made an attempt to draw those two young people together because I could see that they needed each other desperately. I've read lots of times that you magnify the importance of the things you've never had. The fellow with his nose to the grindstone thinks that money is the answer to everything. The invalid yearns for robust health. And the unmarried woman dreams about love. Now I'm an "old maid," but I'm incurably romantic. I've never had a romance, and I don't fool myself that love willcome to me at this late date — but that doesn't keep me from dreaming. I like sentimental movies and lush novels, and I read every romantic love story I can get my hands on. I'm not sad or bitter that life has passed me by, but I did make up my mind a long time ago that Jim, that good-looking kid brother of mine, just has to have another kind of life. I didn't bring him up and send him to college just to have him end up a frustrated old bachelor. I want his life to be rosy and glad — not dull and gray. Now don't get the idea that I'm unhappy— because I'm not. I've got a lot to be thankful for — a good job with the telephone company — a comfortable little home — and a young brother who thinks I'm a pretty good old scout. Anyway, you can't have everything. Everyone in the world misses out on some things. But, in spite of all that, I still didn't want Jim to be cheated of love. And for awhile after he came home from war and found that con niving little Marybelle he was engaged to married to another fellow, I was afraid he wasn't going to find romance, either. I didn't like Marybelle from the first — but I put that down to jealousy. Naturally, I told myself, I wasn't going to think any girl in the world was good enough for Jim, who had been my special pride and joy since he was three. I would have to work to like any girl he married — I realized that. And Jim intended to marry Marybelle. I could tell that from the way he beamed when he said" "Doris, this is Marybelle. This is my girl." Marybelle had big eyes and smooth skin and soft hair. And she had something else — something I never had — a kind of magnetism for men. All boys liked her, and Jim was terribly proud that she was wearing his fraternity pin. But I was afraid of her and of the hurt she might bring to Jim. When I watched her walk and listened to her iaugh and saw the way she looked at Jim's friends, I knew that one man wasn't enough for a girl like Marybelle. And one woman is all Jim will ever want. When a man like Jim falls in love, he falls with a thud — and he doesn't get over it in a hurry, either. I'll never forget the night when Jim found out that Marybelle was married to somebody else. He hadn't been discharged and back home in the house an hour until he put in a long-distance call to her. "Maybe she won't love me anymore — it's been two years," he said to me while he waited. But he was chuckling, and I knew that he was confident that he still was the top man in her life. "She'll take one look at you and forget everything else," I told him, and I meant it. The years away from home had changed him from a slim, college youth to a mature, handsome hero. Any girl would think he was a knockout! Til never forget his face when he came away from the telephone. He didn't say much — just, "Marybelle got married last Friday," but he was all closed up and kind of stiff looking, the way he was the day when he didn't quite make the high school honor society. Lots of the time I don't know when to keep still — but this was once that I did. For the next few days I just let him alone, but I did plenty of worrying while he licked his wounds. He was suffering, and I knew it. You see, he's as much of a dreamer as I am. And I could guess what he'd been dreaming about overseas. He'd been dreaming about coming home to a rich, new life — one that included Marybelle. And now Marybelle was outside of his circle. And he felt cheated and alone. I suffered, too, when he made an effort to pick up the threads of his life the best way he could. But there wasn't much to do for him except to stand by as he started back to work and looked up his old crowd (most of them now married) . It didn't ever occur to me that I might help in any way until I met Betty at KWMT. Betty started to work in the traffic department of our local radio station, and it was her job to operate the teletype machine. You know what the teletype is, don't you — that machine that operates like a typewriter and sends written messages all over the United States? Well, Betty had to send and receive program information on that machine — and the telephone company sent me down to the station to show her how to do it. I was reminded of Jim the minute I looked at her. Right away I knew that there was something strange in her life — a (Continued on page 56)