Radio and television mirror (July-Dec 1942)

saw the dreamy, sad look in his eyes and wondered whether he was thinking the same thoughts. Her husband was not. The song had carried him to the height of nostalgia and he was thinking of a late Fall night, not unlike this one, and of the way a girl named Helen had looked in the light of a campfire on the old picnic grounds by the river. He smiled at his wife and said softly, "Those were the days, dear. I can almost smell that burning — " "DURNING?" his wife started. "Do you smell anything burning. Walter?" "Hot dog," Walter Parker said. "I watched you and let my hot dog burn to a crisp." "Whatever are you talking about?" Helen Parker asked. "Walter, are you all right?" "I'm fine, dear." Walter said. "It's nothing, I was just reminiscing." "Oh." his wife said and smiled at him tenderly. Their son's muttering and exclaiming became louder and they both watched him now as he picked up snapshots and dropped them and talked to himself. Richard Parker was in his own world. He was looking at photographs of a girl named Louise Preston. They had been taken at the lake the summer before and, in Richard's language, they were killer dillers. What a girl! He couldn't decide whether he liked the one where she was playfully hitting him on the head with a tennis racket better than the one where she was holding his hand as they gazed out over the water. "What a girl!" he exclaimed, aloud this time. "Lucky Richard!" Mrs. Parker worried a little about her son talking to himself, and said, "What in the world are you doing, Richard?" Fictionized by Jack Sher from an adventure of the Parker Family, radio's comedy series heard Sunday nights at 9:15, over the Blue network, sponsored by Woodbury Facial Soap. Illustrations posed by the cast — Leon Janney as Richard, Jay Jostyn as Mr. Parker, Linda Carlon as Mrs. Parker. "Hull'.'" Richard said, looking up "Oh, I'm just going over these pictures we took at the lake last year. Mom. I dug 'em out because Louise wants to show em to Honey." Mr. Parker wanted to know who Honey was, but he regretted the question a second after he asked it. Richard began a long explanation which went back to the first time he had met Louise and finally ended with the information that Honey was a certain Honey Lou Drexel whom Louise had met last Christmas on a trip to Virginia. "Honey's comin' up to stay a few weeks with Louise," Richard went on. "Gosh, I wish we were up at the Lake. We could have a big wienie roast and get Honey Lou launched with a bang!" Still thinking about the good old days, Mr. Parker suddenly sat up straight in his chair and said, "What's the matter with launching her at the old picnic grounds on the River Road?" "Gee, Dad," Richard said, not without patriotism, "we don't want to wear out .tires going to picnics." "We don't have to," Mr. Parker rejoined. "By thunder, Helen, it's time we did something for these kids." Helen Parker smiled understanding^. She. too, remembered the old picnic grounds and, while Richard sat there amazed, she and her husband talked of the leaves falling and the paths they had loved and the songs they had sung. It was very hard for Richard to think of his father, now almost forty-two years old, as once young and romantic. He made the mistake of hinting as much. "I'll show you how to have a good time," his father said, a bit piqued, "a real good time, the. way we did when I was your age." He beamed at his wife. "We ought to spend time with the kids," he continued, 'even if we are busy with war work. It would do us good. I'll start the ball rolling. We'll have that picnic tomorrow night!" Richard's eyes widened. A picnic on the river road was not exactly what he had had in mind. "That would be great, Dad," he said politely, "but — " "No buts about it," Mr. Parker broke in. He got out of his chair and strode back and forth across the living room. "I'll rent that big hay wagon of Anderson's. We'll have a good old fashioned hay ride. We'll cook our own supper. I'll be a kid right along with the rest of you!" Mrs.. Parker did not say what she was thinking. Instead, she agreed with her husband. And the more Richard tried to throw cold water on the flame of youth which was now re-kindled in his father. the more Walter Parker enthused about the delights of picnicking. He escorted Richard to the phone and stood by while his son called his friends. He made elaborate" plans for weekly picnics, he thought of himself as a leader among fathers in the back-to-the-old-days-movement. At twelve, an hour after his usual bedtime, he was still going strong. His wife practically had to push him upstairs to bed and, even to her observant eyes, he did look twenty years younger. The next evening, the scene in the Parker kitchen an hour before the hay wagon was to arrive, was slightly chaotic. Mr. Parker, dashing around in his shirtsleeves, had his hands on everything. "Where's that potato salad?" he bawled. "Put it down just a minute ago and now it's gone!" "It's right in front of you, dear," Mrs. Parker said. "And don't forget the paper plates." "Should say not!" her husband shouted. "You women think we men are pretty helpless, don't you?" He paused. "Now what did I do with those danged paper plates?" Mrs. Parker found the paper plates and the potato salad and Walter thought she never looked prettier and younger as she handed him things to pack in the big box on the kitchen floor. When he had the box all packed, he was dismayed to discover that there were still articles waiting on the floor. He accused Helen of giving him a box that was too small. "It's plenty big enough," she answered. "Here, I'll repack it." Her husband helped her take the food out of the box and then the sight of something on the bottom of it caused him to howl again. "Helen, what on earth is in the bottom of this thing! No wonder it won't hold everything!" Mrs. Parker smiled and shook her head. "Why it's just a cushion and your sweater, dear," she said. "The cushion is for you. You won't want to sit on the ground like the children and the sweater is so you won't catch cold." "What do you think I am," he said, indignantly, "an old stick-inthe-mud?" He took the cushion and sweater out of the box and tossed them under the kitchen stove. "Now," he demanded, "where's that first aid kit?" Mrs. Parker turned her face so that her husband wouldn't see that she was trying very hard not to laugh. "Good gracious, you won't need that, Walter!" she said. "Never Continued on page 49 RADIO MIRROR