The Pittsburgh Press (October 8, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, a lot of husbands are probably upset because an important sociological expert wrote that mothers-in-law should be well treated. Most of them think of their wives’ mothers as crumbs on the table of marriage and they’d like to brush them off.
The expert suggested that a mother-in-law might not be such a pest if her life was made more interesting. But how many husbands will take that advice? I can’t quite see them playing poker with the old ladies or teaching them how to mix an Old Fashioned. And what other interests does a husband have?
Personally, I don’t think a mother should live with her married daughter. During a family spat it sort of takes the edge off of threatening to go back to mother if she’s asleep in the spare bedroom.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 9, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I like that! I read where a 97-year-old explosives expert in New York State says he never got married because he regards women as more dangerous than dynamite. He says he never had an accident with explosives, and I can believe it, with a man as careful as that.
On the basis of his reasoning, I guess that the main difference between dynamite and women is that with the former it’s all over in a minute when an explosion occurs, but with the latter the explosions can keep on for years.
My goodness, I never thought of comparing the sexes in this way before, but there may be something in it. If you’re a man, the danger is that you’ll marry a high-explosive shell. If you’re a woman, the danger is that you’ll draw a dud.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 10, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, just because the War Production Board isn’t getting much sleep lately with its reconversion problems, I see that the scarcity of pajamas will continue. This is very hard on people who have insomnia. It’s harder to count sheep who are covered with nice warm wool when you’re not even covered with cotton.
Personally, I think a good substitute for pajamas is the Eskimo sleeping bag. Then, if you can’t sleep, you can amuse yourself with a sack race. And don’t think I haven’t lived in apartments where the people upstairs have had that kind of a race.
Thank goodness, the shortage won’t affect my husband because he still wears nightshirts and am I glad! In all our years of married life, I never tire of looking at his legs because it makes me realize how lucky I am to have mine.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 11, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, the Duke of Windsor is certainly showing England informality of the American type. In London he went to call on a man who worked for the gas company and took Queen Mary with him. He wanted to see what the man’s prefabricated house looked like, and I wonder if the Queen had to take off her famous hat before she could get through a prefabricated door.
Well, of course, England has a labor government these days and a man who works for the gas company may have more influence than an old-fashioned Duke or Earl. Naturally here in America we expect that kind of informality. At our house we always keep the piano in tune in case President Truman should drop in.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 12, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Gracious, I simply can’t understand whatever became of the old-fashioned vacant room. Every time I pick up a paper, the housing shortage is worse. I wouldn’t be surprised if they just shortened the words of the old song, “There’s No Place Like Home” to “There’s No Place.”
In New York people are living in Turkish baths and skating rinks. I heard about one family which sleeps regularly in the balcony of a movie theater. They go to bed at a quarter of “Along Came Jones” and get up at half-past “Anchors Aweigh.”
It isn’t as though we don’t have troubles here in California. The orange growers are afraid to hire people to pick oranges because the pickers just sling hammocks in the trees and stay there until someone else picks them.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 15, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, while a lot of people have been talking about readjusting the boys in service to civilian life it seems that Brownsville, Pennsylvania, has actually done something about it.
I see that males who whistle or make wolf-like noises at Brownsville females to whom they have not been introduced are liable to 30 days in jail. This should certainly make a nice refresher course for returning soldiers to civilian life.
However, I imagine a lot of fighting men are going to be upset to find they have been fighting for freedom of expression in the world and then come home to find they can’t whistle in Brownsville. The good old-fashioned American right to whistle and be whistled at should have been included in the Atlantic Charter.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 16, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, the township of Hillsborough, New Jersey, certainly has big ideas. For years, their annual expense budget has been only $100,000, but now they want heiress Doris Duke to pay them thirteen million dollars in taxes. I suppose it wouldn’t exactly break Doris, but it might chip her a little.
What fascinates me is what Hillsborough will do with all that money if they get it. Maybe they could buy a pair of alligator shoes for every woman and a long-tailed shirt for every man. Or maybe everyone in town could simply just quit work for a few years.
But even if they collect, Miss Duke shouldn’t mind too much, because she’s a tobacco heiress, and tobacco is having a big boom. They tell me it’s being used in cigarettes again.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 17, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, things are looking brighter for people who can’t find a place to live. Anyhow, for those who don’t get seasick. It seems that the Navy people are offering seven nice roomy submarines for sale in Philadelphia.
Personally, I should think that keeping house on a submarine would have lots of advantages. If you saw somebody you didn’t like coming to visit, you’d simply press a button and submerge. And while you were down there all your windows would wash themselves! Also hiding your cook under 40 feet of water would be one sure way of keeping her.
I’d love to have charge of a submarine house for one special reason. It would give me a chance to wear one of those fascinating brass hats the enlisted men are always talking about.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 18, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, the fuss that men make about a woman’s natural rights and privileges! A Los Angeles man who got a traffic ticket complained in court the other day that beautiful women never got them, which isn’t true. I know, because I got a ticket once myself. It so happened that the officer whose motorcycle I hit had his wife out for a drive in the sidecar.
Well, this complaining citizen charged in particular that blonds get the breaks, so if he isn’t married, my advice to him would be to marry a blond and let her do the driving. Of course, it’s barely possible that the blond would turn out to be more expensive than a few traffic tickets.
Personally, I see no excuse for his attitude. It’s a man’s world, and the least they can do is help pay for the upkeep of the roads.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 19, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that Niagara Falls’ famous old honeymoon hotel has burned down. It’s a wonder it didn’t happen years ago, because it was a wooden building and all those young couples were fire hazards, touched by the flame of love.
I’ve never exactly understood why Niagara Falls is so popular for honeymooning. Maybe it associates romance with the sound of rushing water. Then in later years, the wife can still feel romantic hearing the same sound in her washing machine.
Frankly, our Chamber of Commerce envies Niagara Falls and would like to sell newlyweds on Southern California. But what groom can afford to have his bride gazing at Van Johnson? And what bride would want her groom to compare her with such glamor girls as one whose name I could mention if I weren’t so modest?
The Pittsburgh Press (October 22, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, the way styles change is enough to wear a girl out. Just as I finally got my sweaters back from the cleaners, a fashion expert tells us that the latest emphasis will be on the hips. This will disconcert practically every woman but Mae West, who still has nothing to worry about.
This fashion authority claims that hip emphasis will appeal to returning servicemen. But I don’t believe they’ll pay much attention to fine points of style. They’ll only ask of girls what their draft boards first asked them. If they’re alive and warm, they’ll take them.
At times like these I wish I were a man. No expert ever tells them that rousers are through and that they must start wearing Roman togas to emphasize the knobs on their knees.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 23, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, the toy makers have announced that a cute little electric cannon will soon be available for the kiddies, and I suppose war will break out all over again in the shade of a Christmas tree.
These adorable toys go “boom!” and shoot a shell for yards and yards which should do much to enliven the holidays. Some other manufacturer could prosper by putting out small purple hearts for parents who happen to get in the way.
I do wish science would keep out of the nursery. Soon we’ll have a generation of children who believe Santa’s sleigh is a P-38, his reindeer have Diesel engines, and he himself is a famous international spy.
And I wonder in how many homes in the next few weeks the wistful plea will arise: “Pa, kin I have an atom bomb for Christmas?”
The Pittsburgh Press (October 24, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, maybe French politics won’t be so confusing anymore. And then again – who knows? I see that for the first time in history, the women of France have been given the right to vote. The motto of France is liberty, equality and fraternity, but I guess now they’ll have to turn that fraternity into a sorority.
Frenchmen have always thought of French women as cute little things who eat French pastry and send their French lingerie to French hand laundries. Now when they gallantly bend over to kiss a lady’s hand, they may bump their nose on the ballot box that the hand is stuck inside of.
Now that French women have the vote, I know one man who could become president of France without any trouble. But I’d hate to see Charles Boyer leave America just for that.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 25, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, the returning servicemen must be confused by all the advice that’s being piled on them. Now some organization is advising them not to marry girls for looks alone because a beautiful head may have no recipes for soup in it and feet that cut capers on a dance floor may refuse to follow a broom.
I suppose men should pick out girls for their homey qualities but it seldom works that way. I’ve yet to hear a man say, “Boy, oh boy! What a swell hemstitcher I met last night.” And girl’s omelets never get whistled at.
Of course that attitude doesn’t apply only to men. It would be a very strange girl who could gaze into Van Johnson’s eyes and wonder if he was a handy man around the house.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 26, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, the Japanese certainly are gullible. Because of some silly rumors that got started in Hawaii, thousands of them living there believe that Japan won the war. I read where they actually hang around Pearl Harbor waiting for the emperor’s fleet to come in.
If they’ll swallow stuff like that, what a paradise Japan would be for an old-fashioned confidence man. He could pave all the islands with gold bricks and sell the Brooklyn Bridge a dozen times a day.
However, we shouldn’t laugh. Once upon a time, we believed the Japanese were cute and harmless and did nothing but swoon over cherry blossoms. I guess that makes us gullible, too.
The Boston Globe (October 29, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Well, I see that 50 brides of American servicemen have gone home to mother and they must have meant it, as the mothers are in Australia.
The girls say their husbands weren’t so bad, but they just couldn’t stand America. So, in divorce proceedings, I guess they’ll name Massachusetts and Illinois instead of the usual blonde or brunette.
Some of them complained that America isn’t the way it is in the movies. I suppose the poor things expected to find Gene Autry chasing bandits through their backyard and Bette Davis suffering in the house next door.
Others said American women accused them of stealing their men, but I can’t really believe this is why they went home. A woman may pretend to resent being called a man-stealer, but my goodness! She must secretly feel very complimented.
The Boston Globe (October 30, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
Well, tomorrow is Halloween and the OPA was certainly far-sighted in raising the ceiling on sheets. Of course, I don’t know how spirits are going to scare people this time. A ghost yelling “Boo!” is going to sound pretty tame after a scientist has yelled “atomic bomb!” Brrr: One scientist says that a single bomb could wipe out New York. Then along comes another scientist who sees his New York and raises him two Brooklyns and a Philadelphia.
I long for the old-fashioned Halloween when children just went around tipping over sheds and things. Of course, ranks like these nowadays might make a lot of people homeless.
And there seems to be a lack of the traditional jack-o’-lanterns this time. George says this is because the biggest pumpkinheads have gone into politics where we can’t get at them.
The Pittsburgh Press (October 31, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, I see that Lois Andrews, the actress, is married again. She’s the girl who married a Mr. George Jessel when she was 16 years old and Mr. Jessel had stopped counting altogether.
Some people said her first marriage wouldn’t last because of the difference in ages, but I’m a child bride myself and I can safely say my marriage to George has been tone long, sweet symphony with only a couple of pages of music stuck together here and there.
I honestly don’t believe anyone can set down rules for a happy marriage. I hear that in horse racing a lot of people study the past performances of horses and lose anyway. The best way to win is to close your eyes and pick a horse by sticking a pin in the program.
Anyway, that’s the way I got mv husband. I had to stick a pin in him to make him propose.
The Pittsburgh Press (November 1, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness! They certainly have some wonderful gadgets for the home of the future. All the housewife will have to do is press a button, and there’s even a button that does that.
First of all, revolving shower doors are promised. So when we women of America emerge from the bathroom and find our husbands waiting outside, glowering, we can merely say, “Sorry Dear – got caught in the revolving door.”
And I hear electric toothbrushes are coming. I suppose the next step will be electric teeth to do your chewing for you, and then, an electric stomach for quick digestion. All we’ll have to do in future is enjoy a nice meal, and then plug ourselves in.
Yes, they certainly have some marvelous things to put in houses. Now, if we could only get some houses.
The Pittsburgh Press (November 2, 1945)
Gracie Allen Reporting
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Did you notice that congressman got up in the House the other day and waved two pairs of shorts to illustrate a point about the underwear shortage? It’s a good thing he wasn’t talking about the pork shortage. He’d have looked pretty silly with a pig in each hand.
This realism in debate can go too far. What’s going to happen when Congress gets to the atomic bomb? Is someone going to wave a couple of those around?
But to get back to the congressman’s shorts, which is a pretty silly place to get back to, my own husband has given up worrying about the shorts shortage and has gone in for some long longage. Yes, he’s now wearing the old-fashioned kind – you know, the type with the revolving escape hatch in back.