The Pittsburgh Press (March 27, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, it’s beginning to look as though everyone but Mrs. Roosevelt has crossed the Rhine in the last few days.
The Nazi Wehrmacht was astounded at the ease with which the Americans crossed that mighty stream. Little do they know the years of training our boys have had.
Why, crossing the Rhine is nothing compared with trying to get across the streams of traffic on Michigan Boulevard during the rush hour – or Hollywood Boulevard on Saturday night – or Broadway at any time.
And speaking of traffic, wait till some of our Sunday drivers, now driving tanks, start chasing Nazi pedestrians around Inner Germany. I asked George if the Americans were the first to cross the Rhine, and he said, no, a fellow named Caesar did it a long time ago, but came to a bad end.
It seems Caesar was stabbed by his best friend. Of course, Hitler doesn’t have to worry about that. You can’t be stabbed by what you haven’t got.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 28, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, I ran into one of those nasty clerks today. I went into the candy store to buy some Easter rabbits, and the clerk just glared at me and said: “We’ve had a run – or don’t you know what that is?”
The idea of asking any woman if she knows what a run is, with the stockings we get these days! But it developed that he meant there is a shortage of candy Easter rabbits.
I guess they’re sending most of the rabbits to our boys overseas. Though the way they’ve moving in Germany I’d like to see the rabbit that could keep up with them.
Anyway, unless the OPA pulls a few bunnies out of its hat between now and Sunday, I guess we are going to do without them. I know our children, Ronnie and Sandra, will understand. But it’s simply going to break George’s heart.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 29, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, girls, now is the time of year when spring starts breaking up our homes again.
Our better halves bury their noses in the sporting pages at breakfast, and slop coffee on the tablecloth as they get agitated over the Dodger’s chances. They don’t realize that it’s going to take longer for that tablecloth to come back from the laundry than it will for the Dodgers to come back.
It’s funny what spring does to men. They look so healthy and vigorous swinging those golf clubs and tennis rackets. But just hand them a broom or a carpet sweeper, and that forgotten knee injury suddenly flares up.
They can carry a heavy golf ball as far as 10 miles, but they can’t carry a wet sponge as far as a dirty window.
The Pittsburgh Press (March 30, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
I think I should take time out today to thank the people who responded so generously to my story on George’s shorts shortage. To date, George has received six or seven pairs of shorts, a bundle of pot holders, and four empty salt bags of really noble proportions. The latter at least should keep him well preserved.
This just shows you that when you make your wants known the warm-hearted American public will do everything it can to supply you. Look at Mr. Roosevelt. Every four years he says he needs votes to renew the lease on his house and the people give them to him.
And I remember reading a few months ago, when Sen. Saltonstall of Massachusetts happened to remark that his wartime garters wouldn’t stay up, he was practically smothered with gift garters.
Well, now that you’ve taken care of Sen. Saltonstall and George – I wear a size 9 nylon.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 2, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
My goodness, when all these amazing new medicines they’ve been discovering are released to the public, people are going to live forever. My! Wouldn’t it be funny to live long enough to see Mrs. Roosevelt settle down, and a Republican in the White House, and Jack Benny get a motion picture Academy Award and (George says) a Philadelphia baseball team finish in the first division again.
Georgie Jessel and Al Jolson would be in their prime at 400 or 500, and would be marrying sweet young things who hadn’t been out of high school more than 80 or 90 years.
But even if I live to be 500, I’ll still fib about my age. If someone says “How old are you, Gracie?” I’ll just look them right in the eye and say, “Day after tomorrow I’ll be 472.”
The Pittsburgh Press (April 3, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
My husband George who is an authority on military affairs says that Hitler and his friends will fight to the last man. George says he doesn’t know just who this “last man” will be but he’s pretty sure his first name won’t be Adolf.
My guess is that John Doe will be a little elderly German wearing thick spectacles. If they haven’t taken those away from him. He’d be the last man left to hold the fort anyway. Whether he wanted to or not, because he hasn’t any armored car to shoot away to a hideout in the Alps.
George says that the only difference between Hitler and his last man and a prizefight manager and his fighter is that sometimes the man in the ring is allowed a cut of the purse.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 4, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, I’ve just read about the most wonderful invention since the telephone. It’s a jukebox into which you drop a coin and buy three minutes of silence instead of jumpin’ jive. Now, if the scientists can just figure out how to do that with human beings!
My goodness, if you could drop coins in people and get silence. Dr. Goebbels would be so full of metal that they couldn’t hoist him up to a microphone with a derrick.
Mr. Roosevelt would be over in Congress every day, dropping coins in Southern Democrats. And before elections, candidates would go around clanking like wartime autos.
And wouldn’t it be nice, when you’re having a dinner party and your lesser half begins telling that old one about the time he almost made a hole-in-one, if you could whisper to the maid, “Terese, drop a nickel in you-know-who.”
The Pittsburgh Press (April 5, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, if anyone calls you “fat as a pig” these days, you’d better worry about your health. Because you’re really down to skin and bone.
It’s positively frightening the way pigs have wasted away. They haven’t got hams any more or bacon or chops or even salt pork on them.
It would be exaggerating to say they’re on their last legs because there aren’t any pork legs; all that is left on them is feet. At least that’s all I can ever find at my butcher shop.
Maybe we can blame this pig shortage on Walt Disney. His cartoon showered the pigs how to build brick houses so strong that the big bad wolf couldn’t get them. Now the rascals have gone and built houses so strong that even the OPA can huff and puff and not blow them down.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 7, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, last night I went through my husband’s clothes, but not for the usual reason, girls. I went through them to pick out everything that he could spare for the United National Clothing Collection. That’s the wonderful drive that’s underway this month to collect clothing for the 125 million war-impoverished people of Europe who need it so badly.
It’s going to be up to us women to dig out the old clothes because men are just natural-born clothes hoarders.
My husband has a blue serge that came in with Hoover and should have gone out with him. It would have been eaten long ago but it’s so shiny the moths can’t get a foothold.
Between George and the two children and myself, I really collected a big bundle of clothes. Gee, it just makes me feel warm all over to give things to a good cause. I hope it makes George feel that way, too, because that feeling is just about all I left him to keep him warm.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 9, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Here’s an interesting bit of news. Gen. Eisenhower now receives as much fan mail as Frank Sinatra.
A lot of people will feel that that’s a strange comparison but frankly I don’t know which of them is the more dangerous profession. I’d just as soon face the Wehrmacht as a howling mob of bobbysoxers. And no German soldier has tried to tear off Gen. Eisenhower’s uniform and carry off his medals as souvenirs.
But I guess Gen. Eisenhower definitely tops Sinatra. Frankie only makes the girls swoon. The General has got the whole German High Command fainting.
Now, all the bobbysoxers will rise up and say that Gen. Eisenhower can’t “send ‘em” like Frankie can.
I disagree. Look how far he’s sent Patton.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 10, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, that United Nations convention at San Francisco is running into snags even before it gets started. I don’t claim to be an expert, but I did cover the two national political conventions last year. And if I can help Mr. Stettinius out with advice, he’s certainly handsome.
First of all, I didn’t think any convention outside Chicago was legal. I know that’s the way Chicago feels. But then the “Big Three” have big enemies, while Mayor Kelly has only a few thousand policemen. So, they may make it back.
And I’d like to point out that there’s going to be trouble if my country asks for too many votes. I know if Russia asks for three and the United States asks for three, Texas is going to insist on the same number.
Oh well, if they can’t work out everything at San Francisco, they can always go to Chicago.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 11, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Every day that our boys push farther into Germany they find more buried treasure. Discovering that salt mine full of gold really took everybody by surprise. Why, even Warner Bros. was caught napping and didn’t have a motion picture about it in advance.
Well, it just shows how everything in Germany has gone underground. It may be true that Hitler will turn up in Japan. He’s probably burrowing through the earth now to get there.
But if our boys think they’ve found any gold so far just wait until they find the place where Goering cached his medals! There’s just one thing I can’t understand about that salt mine. The papers say it was full of gold bricks. My goodness, I though Hitler had sold all those to the German people.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 13, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
With the great and eloquent of the world paying their tributes to our late President, I realize how futile will be any effort of mine to pay him homage.
Perhaps I can add in sincerity what I lack in eloquence and just say what every American is thinking.
We have lost a great and beloved leader, and this is a time for sadness and mourning. And it is also a time for determination to carry on the principles which he gave his life to establish.
Let us all work to make his dream of a better and more decent world come true. That will be the finest tribute we can pay him.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 16, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
In all that has been said about our great departed President, nothing has impressed me so much as the emphasis on his being, despite his affliction and his burdens, a kind and a cheerful and a humor-loving man.
It was the great privilege of George and myself to have entertained him, and to have observed at Miss Allen first hand his genuine love of laughter.
I mention this because in all the pictures I have ever seen of any of the dictators, not one has shown a smile or a trace of laughter.
They are enemies of human happiness. President Roosevelt was its friend.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 17, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Now Hitler knows how a vacuum cleaner salesman feels (or used to feel). One after another, the neutral countries are slamming the door in his face.
There’s a fine moral in this. One day Hitler has his foot on everybody’s neck, and the next day he can’t get his foot in anybody’s door.
Spain doesn’t want him. Portugal won’t have him. Switzerland isn’t in the market for any rundown cuckoo clocks, and he couldn’t get into Sweden disguised as a platter of smorgasbord.
About the only prospect left for Hitler is Japan, and I don’t think the Japs will want him around either. With their place undergoing extensive alterations by B-29s, the guest room isn’t likely to be in the best of shape.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 19, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Gracious, there’s a report that the Allies have captured Hitler’s personal astrologer in the Ruhr pocket. If he was any good at his trade, he probably knew he’d be a lot safer in that pocket than in Adolf’s.
This astrologer, Professor Krafft, is said to be the one who read in the stars that Hitler would rule the world. That’s just about the biggest typographical error on record.
Personally, I’m surprised that Hitler didn’t sic Himmler and the Gestapo on the stars for not collaborating with him.
Well, with his astrologer gone, about all that Hitler has left now is his intuition. My goodness, I hope we don’t capture that. It’s been doing us too much good where it is.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 20, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, I see where British factories are swinging over from war to civilian production. One factory which used to producer submarine and airplane parts is now producing combs and yoyos! Yoyos… now that’s just about as civilian as you can get.
As you probably know, a yoyo is a top that spins up and down on a string, and I’m trying to figure why, with all their shortages, the British are in such a hurry to make tops.
But apparently Englishmen have a great fondness for tops. I’ve heard them speak to the little things in such endearing terms as “Cheerio, old top,” or “Jolly well played, old top.”
So, Britain will have plenty of them, but personally I just can’t picture their representatives at the peace conference spinning a yoyo.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 21, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, now I’ve heard everything.
There’s an ad in a Hollywood paper by a movie writer who wants to pay people $1 an hour to come to his house and make domestic noises. Solitude distracts him and he wants to hear “homey sounds” while he works.
“Homey sounds,” I guess that’s what I’m listening to right now. There’s that rumbling noise which tells me our daughter is trying out the new finish on the front room floor with her roller skates… a piercing scream from the bathroom means once again George has forgotten to remove our boy’s pet snapping turtle before climbing into the tub… and a crash of glass announces the official opening of the vacant-lot baseball season.
Nice “homey noises.” I’ll be glad to send my little “homey noise” makers over to the movie writer. And he can keep the $1-a-hour. He will need it to repair the damage.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 23, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Did you read the account of that argument in the Senate, about the state in which people lived the longest?
Sen. Chandler of Kentucky admitted that people lived as long in California as they did in his state, but no longer. Sen. Pepper said they lived longer in Florida than anywhere else; and Sen. Tobey practically declared that when anybody died in New Hampshire it drove the war off the front page.
Of course, as a Californian, I believe people live longer here than in any other place – if they can find a place to live. My husband, George, has narrowed it down even more than that. He says that people live longer in our house than in any other place – especially my relatives.
That’s a husband for you. Your mother comes for a little ten-year visit and he complains.
The Pittsburgh Press (April 24, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
I think it’s reassuring that President Truman gets up at 6:30, because there probably isn’t anyone in Washington able to get up early enough to put anything over on him.
Mr. Truman is used to early rising, having lived on a farm, where the alarm clocks are running around all over the place – grunting, crowing, cackling and neighing, making the same kind of noises human beings do in nightclubs or in Congress.
I see that when Mr. Truman was walking to work early in the morning he was greeted by a taxi driver. So that’s when taxi drivers are around!
Anyway, I think our new President is setting a splendid example. Benjamin Franklin said, “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.”
I’m glad he didn’t say “a woman.” I can still sleep late.