438th AAA AW BN
APO 578 % Postmaster, N.Y.
England
11 April, 1944 1045
Dearest one –
There was no mail yesterday so I’m missing out on the day to day episode of our engagement. However – since I have a good imagination – I fill in what I think must be happening – and then I’ll have your letters to see how far from right I was.
I was thinking yesterday how surprised some of my friends will be who don’t know you or rather had no way of knowing about us; for although several of my friends do know you – I never let them know how close we were getting from point of view of an engagement for the simple reason – something might have gone wrong, or been delayed. So I’m going to get a big kick out of spreading the news. It’s been different with you, dear, being home. Everyone I know is going to pop with curiosity, I’m sure, about who you are, where I met you, where you’re from etc. – and it’s too bad we’re not around to meet them all – but look at the fun we will have! And I’m so sure, darling, that everyone will think you’re ‘swell’ and will be glad for me that I was able to find so charming a girl. Gosh – those will be exciting days when I finally get back! There’ll be so many things to do, and places to go – and with all that there’ll be the important business of getting my practice started – finding a place to live and a hundred other things. Great day in the morning – we’ll make up for all these lonely days away from each other, darling! I won’t let you out of my sight for a moment – you can believe me, dear – because we’ll be far behind in knowing each other – and we’ll have to catch up.
Enough dreaming for now, A.! Yesterday was another quiet day – broken up a bit by a squash game in the p.m. This time I played with a “Leftenant” Stevenson of the British army, home on leave with his family. I met him thru the Reverend and he is as typical a British officer as anything you ever read about or saw in the movies. His father is a physician – a retired Colonel in the Indian Medical Service. When we were thru playing, he asked me up to tea at his house – and we spent a pleasant hour or so up there. I’m playing with him again, tomorrow, Wednesday. He has seen service in N. Africa and Italy and had a good many interesting stories to tell about fighting the Germans.
In the evening, after bathing, I straightened my room and listened to the radio. Bing Crosby, Sinatra and D. Shore were all on one program – really good; I also listened to Radio Theater’s “Men in White” – which I saw on the stage several years ago; and also to Joan Doves and Jack Haley and then, sweetheart – it was time for bed and dreams. As always, I still do my best dreaming and thinking when the lights are out and before I fall asleep. As always now – darling – my thoughts are about you, us, and the future and the thoughts are so aggravatingly pleasant. Oh well – we can sweat it out – can’t we?
That’s all for now, dearest. Love to the family and until tomorrow –
There was no mail yesterday so I’m missing out on the day to day episode of our engagement. However – since I have a good imagination – I fill in what I think must be happening – and then I’ll have your letters to see how far from right I was.
I was thinking yesterday how surprised some of my friends will be who don’t know you or rather had no way of knowing about us; for although several of my friends do know you – I never let them know how close we were getting from point of view of an engagement for the simple reason – something might have gone wrong, or been delayed. So I’m going to get a big kick out of spreading the news. It’s been different with you, dear, being home. Everyone I know is going to pop with curiosity, I’m sure, about who you are, where I met you, where you’re from etc. – and it’s too bad we’re not around to meet them all – but look at the fun we will have! And I’m so sure, darling, that everyone will think you’re ‘swell’ and will be glad for me that I was able to find so charming a girl. Gosh – those will be exciting days when I finally get back! There’ll be so many things to do, and places to go – and with all that there’ll be the important business of getting my practice started – finding a place to live and a hundred other things. Great day in the morning – we’ll make up for all these lonely days away from each other, darling! I won’t let you out of my sight for a moment – you can believe me, dear – because we’ll be far behind in knowing each other – and we’ll have to catch up.
Enough dreaming for now, A.! Yesterday was another quiet day – broken up a bit by a squash game in the p.m. This time I played with a “Leftenant” Stevenson of the British army, home on leave with his family. I met him thru the Reverend and he is as typical a British officer as anything you ever read about or saw in the movies. His father is a physician – a retired Colonel in the Indian Medical Service. When we were thru playing, he asked me up to tea at his house – and we spent a pleasant hour or so up there. I’m playing with him again, tomorrow, Wednesday. He has seen service in N. Africa and Italy and had a good many interesting stories to tell about fighting the Germans.
In the evening, after bathing, I straightened my room and listened to the radio. Bing Crosby, Sinatra and D. Shore were all on one program – really good; I also listened to Radio Theater’s “Men in White” – which I saw on the stage several years ago; and also to Joan Doves and Jack Haley and then, sweetheart – it was time for bed and dreams. As always, I still do my best dreaming and thinking when the lights are out and before I fall asleep. As always now – darling – my thoughts are about you, us, and the future and the thoughts are so aggravatingly pleasant. Oh well – we can sweat it out – can’t we?
That’s all for now, dearest. Love to the family and until tomorrow –
All my deepest love
Greg
* TIDBIT *
about Lux Radio Theater and
Men in White
Studio audience gathering before a live production
about Lux Radio Theater and
Men in White
Studio audience gathering before a live production
Lux Radio Theater, a long-run classic radio anthology series, was broadcast live on the NBC Blue Network (1934-35), CBS (1935-54) and NBC (1954-55). The series adapted Broadway plays during its first two seasons before it began adapting films. These hour-long radio programs were performed live before studio audiences. It became the most popular dramatic anthology series on radio, broadcast for more than 20 years and continued on television as the Lux Video Theatre through most of the 1950s. Cecil B. DeMille took over as the host on June 1, 1936, continuing until January 22, 1945. Lux Radio Theater strove to feature as many of the original stars of the original stage and film productions as possible, usually paying them $5,000 an appearance.
In Men in White, Spencer Tracy plays Dr. George Ferguson, a dynamic young intern whose brilliant future seems assured. In addition to planning to study in Vienna, then to serve as the assistant to his mentor Dr. Hochberg, Ferguson is slated for a socially prestigious marriage to wealthy Laura Hudson. But when Laura begins expressing displeasure over Ferguson's dedication to his work, he enters into a brief affair with student nurse Barbara Dennin. Upon finding that she's pregnant, Barbara desperately undergoes an illegal abortion (a plot point made larger in the movie version, but merely alluded to in the screenplay). The botched operation results in Barbara being rushed into emergency surgery, where her life is in Ferguson's hands. In a third-act climax that would not have seemed out of place on TV's Chicago Hope, Laura finds herself a witness to the operation -- and to Barbara's deathbed "absolution" of Dr. Ferguson's sins.
Here is the first segment found on YouTube, as done by Encore Theatre, starring Robert Taylor.
In Men in White, Spencer Tracy plays Dr. George Ferguson, a dynamic young intern whose brilliant future seems assured. In addition to planning to study in Vienna, then to serve as the assistant to his mentor Dr. Hochberg, Ferguson is slated for a socially prestigious marriage to wealthy Laura Hudson. But when Laura begins expressing displeasure over Ferguson's dedication to his work, he enters into a brief affair with student nurse Barbara Dennin. Upon finding that she's pregnant, Barbara desperately undergoes an illegal abortion (a plot point made larger in the movie version, but merely alluded to in the screenplay). The botched operation results in Barbara being rushed into emergency surgery, where her life is in Ferguson's hands. In a third-act climax that would not have seemed out of place on TV's Chicago Hope, Laura finds herself a witness to the operation -- and to Barbara's deathbed "absolution" of Dr. Ferguson's sins.
Here is the first segment found on YouTube, as done by Encore Theatre, starring Robert Taylor.
