It will soon be Pearl Harbor day, bringing memories of WW II. My husband, George, was an electrician and had worked for RCA in the twenties. In fact, he had made one of the earliest broadcasts to Australia...inadvertently. While attempting to establish a connection, and not knowing the mike was on, George had yelled to his helper, "Where the Hell is my hammer?" His first realization of his international faux pas came later when a voice boomed out from "down under", "Mateys, did the bloke find 'is 'ammer?" Early in our country's involvement in the Pacific, George received word from RCA asking him to return. By then, we owned a hardware store, as well as electrical and plumbing contracting business, so George said, "No thanks". The answer to that was, "Either you come voluntarily, or the U.S. Navy will make it official". He went!

When George had worked at RCA, radio communication was still long wave (vs. short wave), which would simultaneously reach anything in the air, on the ground and below the sea. The wartime Navy wanted that ability restored. The old equipment was still at RCA, but many changes had been made since the original blueprints. Plus, in a patriotic frenzy, all the wiring had been torn out and donated to a scrap metal drive. RCA had recommended George for the restoration, but first he had to be located. A search had ensued, following him through all the jobs he'd had until they'd finally traced him to where we then lived. Armed with a 32" x 8' outdated blueprint, it was George's challenge to restore the equipment to working order. He, and another electrician he hired, finished the job in four months, and the equipment was indeed used to communicate with planes, troops and submarines simultaneously.

After that was completed, George applied for a Navy commission as a Warrant Officer. He flunked the physical ... was told there was sugar in his urine, but was given the opportunity to clear it with his own Dr. Later tests proved negative, and "Old Doc" said, "Probably the fifth guy ahead of you in line was diabetic and they didn't wash the bottle." In the meantime, I, and a crew of women (the men were gone) were operating the hardware store successfully, so George went to work at Hunter's Point Naval Dry Docks until his commission came through. When it did, Hunter's Point wouldn't release him. Although a civilian, he went on to be second in command of over 2000 electricians, and was sent to Washington D.C. as one of two members of each Navy Yard (nation-wide) to confer with Admiral Rickover.

Since it seemed he would be living in San Francisco for some time, he started looking for an apartment...next to an impossible quest at that time. He stopped in at a little radio store near the naval yard, and in conversation with the owner, mentioned the plentiful deer and wild hogs in Monterey Co. where we lived. The owner practically drooled. A bargain was struck. If George could influence friends to let Clyde hunt on their property, Clyde could steer George to an available rental. Deal! The apartment turned out to be upstairs over the radio store and a bar. George's mother moved in to keep house for him and loved living in San Francisco. I could come up on occasional weekends. The door to the apartment was flush with the street and between the two businesses. We country folks apparently weren't too vigilant at locking the door, as one evening when I was there, the street door opened and two sailors came bouncing up the stairs. When I met them at the top of the stairs, they eyed me, then asked "Where are the girls?" Obviously, I didn't qualify. That was our first clue as to the former tenant. We locked the door after that.

When I remember that apartment, I also remember George's Aunt Clara, for I first met her there. She was an ebullient Irish lady of generous proportions. She was ready with hugs, was generous, loving and motherly. She always made me think of Sophie Tucker. Aunt Clara couldn't believe we had no liquor in the house, but that was O.K., since there was a bar downstairs. She headed down there and ordered a drink "to go". The bartender said, "We can't sell you a drink to take out." Sez Clara, in her most positive voice, and with appropriate gestures, "I'm not taking it out, I'm taking it UP". They let her out the back door and she returned via the back stairs.

The confused drunks would sometimes wander out the back door of the bar and climb those stairs. One morning, George's mom opened the kitchen door to get something from the enclosed back porch and found a man there peacefully sleeping it off. Not too long after that, as George was driving to work, he saw a man nailing a "For Sale" sign on a house a block from the back gate of the Navy Yard. George gave the man a fee to "hold", phoned me for reaction, picked up his mother to help check out the house, and we became house owners that day, no longer bordello dwellers.

Aunt Clara had run a boarding house for actors (in Chicago, I think). One night we took her to a night club that had live entertainment. In the middle of the act, Aunt Clara stood up, pointed to the performer who had just entered the stage, and bellowed, "Frankie, you old son of a gun". The actor peered out, spotted Clara, and jumped into the audience for an enthusiastic exchange of hugs and back slaps before the entertainment continued.

My favorite Aunt Clara story was from her youth. She was living in a two story house owned by a couple of maiden ladies. Her bedroom was over the kitchen and below her bedroom window was the slanting tin roof of the back porch. On that night, Clara had gone to bed and then realized she should have made one more trip to the outhouse. She just wasn't in the mood to do that, so decided to hang out the window and let 'er go. In the process, she heard from below, on the porch "Good grief, Maude, it's rainin' and the stars are shinin'."

During that time I also reached the peak of my drinking career. (My lifetime consumption wouldn't overflow a Mason jar). The "Top Of The Mark" was the well known bar at the top of the Mark Hopkins hotel. The building was taller than anything near, and the entire top floor was surrounded with floor to ceiling glass walls, so you could sit there sipping and see the whole Bay area. It was especially impressive at night. There were three couples of us who had gone to the theatre together, and after the show we decided we had to see the Top of The Mark. We knew it was getting near closing time, so the two of us nearest the door, on the passenger side of the car, jumped out to run on in and do the ordering while the others got parked and followed. Ernest and I were that advance guard. ( He was one of the three small ghosts I'd mentioned in last month's letter: a friend from age five.) We went up in the elevator, found a table and ordered the six drinks, each different. We waited, and waited, and waited. Something had to have gone wrong, but we weren't about to walk away from the drinks. After all, we'd paid for them. Finally we drank them. I remember the favorite of my three was Southern Comfort. When we made our way back down, we found four definitely disgruntled people who had arrived just after the night's cut-off of elevator trips "up". Ernest and I were having a very good time. The others seemed to me, in my enlightened state (lit up), to be killjoys.

I chuckled this week over a memory flashback of Thelma's. She and Joe had been boy friend/girlfriend when she was in high school, but ended up each married to someone else. Years later, when both were single again, they got together. With Joe, however, it was a package deal, which meant Thelma also acquired Smokey, who was a dog of miscellaneous heritage with a single and permanently predictable mood ... nasty. Joe was undoubtedly the only person who loved that dog. If we went to visit Thelma, she had to restrain Smokey as we left, as he dearly loved snacks grabbed from departing ankles. Joe noted, one day, as he walked Smokey, that no evacuation activity had occurred, nor, when he thought about it, had anything emerged for several days. So Joe was worried. Thelma would liked to have ignored the situation, but for Joe's peace of mind, she suggested a suppository, which she would insert if Joe would guarantee that he'd keep the other end secure. As soon as Thelma lifted Smokey's tail, it was a lost cause. Joe valiantly wrestled with Smokey and lost. Thelma was in danger of losing a hand, but, instead, Smokey somehow managed to swallow the suppository. Before long, he was dancing at the door and, although Thelma doesn't recommend the procedure, she assures me it worked!

This month's re-runs are a couple of Christmas-past memories. From my holiday letter of 1970, when Beth and John, both eighteen, had recently married: "Our newlyweds are both going to college and are working part-time. They have an active family of twelve and already there are two sardine cans in the pet cemetery: hamsters, Grace, who died of old age, and Prudence, who was imprudent enough to chew out of her cage to play with the kittens. The energetic twelve include: three kittens, two hamsters, two chinchillas, two guinea pigs (at present count) and three mice." The decorating of their first Christmas tree was an all-out artistic project, using four boxes of GLASS ornaments. The kittens thought Santa had come early; a tree to climb and toys to bat. It was a long time before anyone walked barefoot in the vicinity of the Christmas tree site, nor were enough ornaments left to create a storage problem.

1959: "The Bluebirds were the seven and eight year old division of Campfire Girls. At Christmas time we took our group to a convalescent hospital. As the little girls moved from door to door singing familiar Christmas carols, the wheelchair occupants started to follow and I could see wavery mouths moving in sync with the words. Someone suggested each girl push a wheelchair, so we wound our way through the halls; a parade of budding youth and mobile nostalgia. Sweet piping voices blended with quavering ones...a joyful, teary experience."

Peace on earth seems to be more elusive than ever this holiday season. As I pointed out in October, there was a great teacher whose birthday we celebrate this month. He said, "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself". Add to that the Golden Rule. Those two precepts, truly practiced, would bring peace to the world. At the least, we can each strive diligently to create peace on the bit of the earth immediately surrounding us: our family, our neighbors, our workplace.

I wish for each of you a Joyous Christmas and an interesting New Year.

            Love,    Darlys

    Many a Christmas tie is in a clash by itself.

    Bobby and Tommy were walking home from Sunday school after hearing a strong preaching on the devil. A thoughtful Tommy asked, "What do you think about all that Satan stuff?" Bobby replied, "Well, you know how Santa Claus turned out. It's probably just your dad."

    Kids are smart these days. A five year old, who received a complete set of Peter Rabbit books for Christmas, uses them to sit on in order to reach the keys of her computer.

    A man and his wife were sitting in the living room and he said to her: "Just so you know, I never want to live in a vegetative state dependent on some machine. If that ever happens, just pull the plug." His wife got up and unplugged the TV.

2005 2nd Wind Issue Index