Radio and television mirror (Nov 1939-Apr 1940)

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D°P' MC4-40 j j 79 Sudbury Street, Boston, Masa. Name Street I City State | GIVE ORIGINAL HAIR COLOR I FARIVS FOR GRAY HRIR 86 that first year. Dan's was one of those staff jobs on which he went to work almost at the crack of dawn and got home at any or all hours of the night. I was working, too, in a book shop, and finally I became used to returning to our small walk-up apartment and preparing dinner for myself while Dan worked at the studio — not a very pleasant routine for any wife, but particularly not for a new bride. Still, we were young and, in a harum-scarum sort of way, it was fun. The next spring, when the time for Nancy's arrival drew nearer, I gave up my job. We were thrilled. It was exactly as we had planned it — -a child we could watch grow up while we were both young. The hard part was not seeing Dan as much as I wanted to. He couldn't change his long hours, so I spent most of my days in the hospital alone — and lonely. THEN, that summer, the Community ' Sing program came to Boston for a try-out The show was important and auditions were held to select the announcer Here was just the sort of break Dan had been hoping for. When he came home with the news that he had won the job, I knew our luck had come. Now, 1 thought, we could settle down to regular hours and lots of leisure time to spend together. That shows how much I knew about it. Only a few weeks after the Community Sing program started Dan secured a job with CBS in New York. That meant that while Community Sing was still being broadcast from Boston, Dan had to commute there from New York (where we moved at once, of course) every week. He not only commuted, he flew; and his work, if anything, became more demanding than it had ever been before. In September, though, Community Sing moved to New York, and Dan got the coveted post of announcer for Major Bowes. We really spread ourselves then. We moved into an apartment out in the suburbs — and had just nicely settled ourselves when Community Sing moved again, this time to Hollywood. Like the tail on the end of the dog, we went along — uprooting our carefully planned home, in the suburbs in the process. A year in Hollywood — and then whisk! back to New York again. And now our life really became complicated. Dan went to work on the Benny Goodman program, and on one of those early-morning news broadcasts. He had to be in the studio at 6:45, which meant leaving home at 6:15. I was the loyal, helpful little wife for the first week or so of that schedule. I got up regularly to prepare Dan's breakfast. But Dan discovered he couldn't eat that early in the morning (I suspected he just felt sorry for me) , so I stopped getting up. Evening meals were a problem, too, — and still are. We never quite know when we can expect the head of our family. After a while I got used to placing the dinner on the table, waiting, watching it get cold — then a telephone call: "Darling, we've got to make recordings (or do a movie short or rehearse right up to broadcast time or something) and I can't get home for dinner. I couldn't call you earlier because I was in the studio." But what really makes life difficult are the quick airplane trips Dan has to take when one of his programs goes on tour. They began when the Goodman band went on the road. Its commercial radio program went on the air Tuesday nights at 9:30, and Dan was busy in New York with other programs until 2:30 Tuesday afternoons. He'd get the first plane out and fly back that same night for his early morning commercial. My worst experience in those days occurred a short time after a plane crash in Cleveland, when every person on board was killed. The Tuesday when Dan was to fly was stormy and foggy. To make things worse, the show was coming from Cleveland, the scene of the crash. When he called me from the airport to tell me all flights had been cancelled, I breathed a sigh of overwhelming relief. Five minutes later he called me back. The airport officials had decided to try sending one flight through. Dan was leaving on it — "and please don't worry," he added. Not worry! As soon as I hung up the telephone, I turned on the short wave band of our radio. Long since I had learned that I could follow the complete line of flight when Dan was in the air by tuning in the airplane band and listening to the conversations between pilot and airport. This night, I sat glued to my chair, listening to those laconic, unemotional words coming through the stormy night. "Fog .... rain .... trying to fly above . . ." In themselves, they didn't tell me much. But they were reassuring. As long as I could hear them, I knew Dan was safe. Then, suddenly, they stopped, when the plane was within three miles of the Cleveland airport. The weather reports were increasingly bad. What was happening? Impotently, I sat there in my comfortable living room and pictured Dan crushed in the midst of wreckage, somewhere in the snow-covered country near Cleveland. The hands of the clock crept around to 9:25. I switched the radio back to the commercial wave band and tuned in WABC, the Columbia station in New York — and waited. Every one of those five minutes was longer than the one preceding it. The station break — theme music for the Goodman program — and at last: "This is Dan Seymour ushering in . . . ." I N those lonely hours of suspense I 1 had made one decision, and a month later I had my chance to put it into effect. Again it was a stormy Tuesday; again Dan had to fly, this time to Detroit. But I wouldn't let him go alone. "Nancy and I are flying with you," I said stubbornly to all his arguments. "If anything happens, it happens to all of us." The storm when we reached the airport was even worse than the one of the month before. Flights had been cancelled, but one plane was being sent through. It was scheduled to arrive in Detroit exactly one hour before the program went on the air. We climbed aboard. The storm seemed to have been waiting for us to reach the right altitude before unleashing its full fury. Lightning crackled around the wing tips, and the plane rocked and dipped as if it were completely at the mercy of the elements. I was more frightened than I had ever been in all my life. But Nancy sat there and giggled RADIO AND TELEVISION MIRROR