Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1951)

R HI 72 It would have been a rough trip for them. We had fun, of course, and saw a lot of wonderful places. But mostly, it was work. So much so that, when we got back to good old New York, I had planned to take a week off to go fishing up in the Canadian woods. I even had Alice convinced that a week in the rugged out-of-doors was just what the doc;or ordered. Then, on our first night in New York, we called up the kids in Hollywood. After our round of hellos, little Alice got on the phone and asked me when we were coming homeT "Daddy thought he would take a little vacation up in the Canadian woods," I told her. "We'll probably be home in another week, honey." "But Daddy," she exclaimed. "Don't you think you've had a long enough vacation already?" Think I went fishing? Nope. That gorgeous day-dream I'd been having of frying golden brown trout alongside a rushing river exploded like a smoke bomb. We packed up the next day and went home. And the beautiful English split-bamboo fly rod I bought in London hasn't been out of its case yet. We hardly recognized the girls when we first saw them. They had spent the summer in the Toluca Lake Girls' Club, and they were tanned, healthy, and several inches taller from their swimming, hiking, and riding. I could hardly see Phyllis for the athletic awards she had won. Little Ailce, who is now eight, was a sedate. little lady. According to her grandmother, this resulted from watching J. Arthur Rank movies on television all summer. And I could believe it. When we left for Europe, Alice was a fan of Cyclone Malone and Time for Beany. But now, that stuff is too tame. Lately, she has been memorizing all of the program listings and picks and chooses her TV diet like a careful adult. She has got to be such a fanatic watcher that it is all we can do to make her come to the table for dinner. And it is a struggle, requiring all of the persuasion that both Alice and I can muster, to pull her loose from the set at her 8:30 bedtime. "Gosh," she will comnlain, as she marches up to bed, "and KTTV is showing the swellest mystery picture tonight. I'll be glad when I'm old enough to stay up all night!" Phyllis, on the other hand, likes her beauty sleep. She thinks that sitting up to watch television is for kids. Even when we have company, she excuses herself early. "Daddy, I'm sleepy," she will suddenly announce. "I want to go to bed." And that's that. Off she marches for her date with the sandman. There's quite a difference in the way my two girls are developing. Just enough difference, as a matter of fact, to complicate my already hectic problem of keeping up with them. The other night, Alice sidled up alongside my easy chair, and said, "Tell me, Daddy. Do you think that I'll have to be a nightclub singer before I can get into the movies?" "What's this?" I asked, jolted. "I've decided I want to be an actress like Mama," she said, cool as a cucumber. "And I want to know how to plan my career." "Aren't you being a little previous?" I asked. My Favorite Blondes (Continued -from page 25) "Oh, no. I don't want to waste any time," she said. "I thought I'd better start taking dancing lessons right away." "All right, sugar," I said, helplessly. And she is taking dancing lessons, and working like a beaver at her practice. Phyllis doesn't care much for dramatics, at least not yet. All she wants to be, right at the moment, is national backstroke champion, a mountain climber, a lady wrestler, and the best woman rider in the world. Give her time, and she may make it. She has enough coordination for a whole Olympic tumbling team. When she was two years old, she was swimming the length of our pool, and she constantly amazes me with her feats of strength and endurance. The other afternoon when I came home, big Alice greeted me at the door. "I wish you would speak to your daughter," she said, dramatically. "Sure," I said. "Which one?" "Phyllis." "Gladly," I replied, in my usual cheery tone of voice. "Where is the little love?" "Up in that elm tree out front," said Alice. "If you look high enough you can see her from here." I walked out to the tree and asked Phyllis nicely to come down before she fell and hurt herself. "Come up and get me," she giggled. She was grinning like the Cheshire Cat from a branch about fifteen feet up. "You know your poor old Daddy can't climb trees any more," I pleaded. "Come on down." "Oh, all right," she said, like I was spoiling her fun. She slid down in about two seconds, completely unconcerned by the height. Phyllis is also at that age (six) when all the things in nature are just too wonderful for words. And this, of course, brings about a crisis now and then. The other morning I was brought suddenly awake by a chorus of feminine screams reverberating through the house. Then I heard big Alice call, "Phil, come here. Hurry!" I grabbed up a robe and ran for the girls' bedroom. Phyllis was sitting on her bed crying, and little Alice was standing on hers, screaming as though she had just seen the Wolf Man. "What is the matter, for Pete's sake?" I asked. "Phyllis's woolly worm is loose in *7^ -^fa °£ *> <2tanto'UMi4, Listen to "WENDY WARREN and the News" Monday through Friday CBS Stations Check Paper for Time Read the news of women today in reported by Wendy Warren each month in TRUE EXPERIENCES magazine now at newsstands. here somewhere," my good wife said, hysterically. "What?" I shouted. "Phyllis caught a woolly worm yesterday and put it in this fruit jar," she explained, handing me a jar full of grass cuttings. "And Alice is afraid she might step on it if she gets off the bed. You'll simply have to find it, Phil, or Phyllis will be heartbroken." "O.K.," I said. "Don't anyone move." If you can think of anything sillier for a grown man to do than to start out his morning crawling around on his hands and knees looking for a lost woolly worm, I'll put in with you. But I finally found the creature slowly inching its way up the side of Phyllis' dresser. "Oh, good," said big Alice. "Wonderful," said little Alice. "Thank you, Daddy," said Phyllis. "Keep the lid on that jar," I growled, on my way back to bed. I went back to sleep and had a dream about ten thousand woolly worms crawling up the microphone just as I started to sing. It was awful. My problems don't all arise from a difference in my daughters' temperaments and general outlook on things. A good many of them are caused simply by me being outsmarted and too humiliated to do anything about it. The other night, for instance, while I was watching the fights on television, my wife came into the room with a defiant glint in her eye. "What kind of nonsense have you been telling Alice?" she asked. "She came into the bedroom crying and said that you were going into the ring." "Nonsense," I said. "I'm too old." "That's what I told her. But she said you were out in the living room, dodging and swinging away just like the men on the television set." Now, if I were cynical I'd say that Alice dreamed that one up simply because I took over the television set to watch the Louis-Charles fight, and she missed one of her favorite programs. But she had me dead to rights. I was being a little strenuous with my cheering, and it might have worried the child. I have to believe that. Honest, I do. It is getting so I am almost afraid to argue with my daughters anymore. I am wrong too much. Like the afternoon several weeks ago when I came home from a round of golf at Lakeside to find little Alice waiting for me at I the gate. "You've got to help me do something," she whispered in a tone like Mata Hari. "What?" "I want to bake a cake for Mama while she's at the beauty parlor." "Gosh, honey," I said. "It takes a lot of time and work to bake a cake. You need eggs, and flour, and shortening, and all sorts of things. It would take us hours." "No it wouldn't," she insisted. "Betty Crocker has some stuff that you just add milk to. I saw it on television." "We'd have to grease the pans, and make icing, and heat up the oven," I said, thinking of every possible problem. "No, Daddy, all we need is the stuff." "Well, I'll get you some of it tomorrow and maybe Mama will help you bake it." Next evening, she very proudly an