Brothers Reunited and Moving to Midshipmen's School

Conrad Frieze (far left) leading a V-12 inspection and review in Husky Stadium, the UW Seattle, 1944

"I led my last V-12 review and inspection in the quadrangle on June 16^th"

In April of 1945, my brother Dick, who had been in the South Pacific the whole time, finally got back to the states and came to Seattle while he was on a long leave.  It was the first time I had seen or talked to him since 15 September 1942, the day before I sailed from Pearl Harbor on the USS COPAHEE bound for New Caledonia.  I signed my own special liberty pass and we had one hell of a liberty in the dives of the Seattle waterfront.  I do not believe that Captain Barr would have approved of the condition in which his battalion commander returned to the campus in the wee hours of 16 April 1945!

It had been two and a half years since we, who had grown up almost as twins, had seen each other.  Dick was never (and still is not) much of a hand at writing letters so we had a lot to catch up on.  After a few drinks, he left me in stitches with his sea stories about all that had happened to him down in the Solomons.  He had been in and out of trouble countless times, had been busted in rank, had been to captain’s mast more times than he could count, and had even spent a little time in the brig, but he had one hell of a happy time at it.

Dick’s story about coming back stateside from some remote island in the Solomons carrying a skull in a ditty bag left me roaring with laughter in some bar down on First Avenue.  (Repeatedly I have asked Dick since to tape record his tall tales so I could write a book titled “Tales of the Soused Pacific” but he has never done so.  He has said that his daughter, Janice, would take on the chore of recording his exploits but too often nothing comes of old Dick’s plans.)

Somewhere along the way before we got tossed out of some joint at closing time, Dick did reveal that he had gotten a divorce from Diane.  He was obviously still in love with her, but when he came back from the South Pacific to Honolulu without advance notice apparently, he found his Japanese wife shacked up with a Marine.  I was sorry to hear that because I liked Diane very much.  In fact, I visited with her later just after the war when I went through Honolulu in the spring of 1946 as a new Navy ensign on my way to Guam.

(In the end, it turned out for the best for Richard.  While he was still on leave in 1945, he went with our parents back to the Ozarks, met a beautiful brunette from South Greenfield, and married her.  They are still together and I give credit to my sister-in-law, Mary, for being some sort of a saint to have put up with Dick’s foibles all these many years.) [My Aunt Mary Frieze was strong in a way similar to her mother-in-law—Missouri produces strong women—and so much fun to be around.  And yes, she loved Uncle Dick as no one else could have.]

Dick joined others of the family and friends that had questioned the wisdom of becoming engaged to Shirley.  Several had thought I was making a big mistake.  One day I came to the Beta House to find that an eight by ten photo of Shirley that I kept on my desk was in the waste basket.  When I protested, Dykeman growled, “Aw, come one, Con—that’s what you ought to do with it!”

Dick’s comment during our liberty was more to the point, “Hell, brother,--why buy a cow when the milk is damned cheap!”  Infatuated, I ignored them all.

By May of 1945, tired of the routine at the UW, I was feeling very keenly the disappointment that I was not going to be in at the end of the war in the Pacific.  The war in Europe was finally over.  Mussolini in Italy had been long since assassinated and his body and that of his mistress hung by the heels in public.  Adolph Hitler was dead, and his cohorts such as Goering had been arrested and would be tried as war criminals.  The many stories, photographs, and newsreels of the Nazi extermination camps were sickening.  Hitler’s Third Reich, designed to dominate the world and last a thousand years was over, the most infamous chapter in the history of mankind.

Out in the Pacific, Japan was doomed but was still fighting back as the invasion of Okinawa was winding down.  The once-mighty Japanese Navy was impotent and had been effectively destroyed.  Our Grumman F6F Navy fighters and the gull-winged Vought Corsairs outflew the vaunted Zeroes and shot them down almost at will.  The most fearsome weapon the Japanese had left were the kamikazes and their numbers had been decimated.  Boeing B-29 “Superfortresses” laid waste to Tokyo, except for the Imperial Palace, and other Japanese cities.  Now it was only a matter of time before a long and bloody invasion of the Japanese home islands would begin.

Also in the back of my mind was the knowledge that when the war ended the V-12 program would be terminated and I would not get my coveted commission in the Navy.  I knew, too, that the requirement for midshipman’s school was at least two years of college and by the end of spring semester I would have completed my junior year.

For once in the old country boy made a right decision.  I filled out my application for fransfer to midshipman’s school, took it to Captain Barr personally, and—almost on my knees—begged him to forward it.  I explained my background to the captain, pointing out that I had been there at the beginning and wanted nothing worse than to be there at the victorious end.

Barr, an over-average career man, could appreciate my reasoning.  He forwarded my request to BuPers and on the last day of May approval of my request came from the Bureau.  On 14 June 1945 orders came from BuPers for me to report to the University of Notre Dame for midshipmen’s school on 12 July 1945.  The orders were to be effective at the end of the semester on the 22^nd of July.

I led my last V-12 review and inspection in the quadrangle on June 16^th, breezed through finals week, and on June 22^nd left the UW for South Bend via a two-week delay in orders that, of course, I spent in Vancouver.

Husky Baseball and Bar Fights

Con Frieze, sophomore baseball manager, UW Seattle, 1944

"I continued to wear my campaign ribbons, the red Good Conduct ribbon above the others, on campus and on leave at home, but when I went on liberty in downtown Seattle I would quietly remove them and carry them in my pocket..."

Although during my two years at the UW I continued to go to Vancouver on weekends and between semester leaves, I did participate in some extra-curricular activities at the university.  Early in 1944 Colin Dykeman, who was one of the replacements for Cason and Cramer in our Beta House quarters told me that Tubby Graves, the UW coach of both baseball and track, was looking for milers.  Since the Navy encouraged us to participate in school sports and I had done a lot of cross-country trotting and running in the Ozarks, I decided to try out for the track team.

I went to Hec-Edmundson pavilion one afternoon, met with Graves, and drew a pair of track shoes.  Graves watched me do some laps in the pavilion (it was raining that afternoon so we could not use the track in Husky Stadium).  Afterward =, the coach shook his head and said, “Frieze, I don’t think you are exactly a threat to break the four-minute mile.  You just don’t have the stride of a miler and you carry your hand too high.  By the way—you play baseball?  We can use some players on the Husky squad.”

Graves was obviously not impressed with my track ability and I knew I might as well be honest because he would be watching me on the ball field.  “Well, coached I played a little sandlot ball back in the Ozarks—second base and some outfield—but, no, don’t reckon I’m any great shakes at it.”

“Well, we do need a sophomore baseball manager for the Huskies.  Soph manager mostly takes care of gear, hits some fungos at practice, and shags balls.  Glad to have you if you want to be a Husky.”

I took Graves up on it (I liked and respected him) and for the 1944 baseball season I issued uniforms, hit fungos in practice, and sat in the dugout during all Husky games helping Graves keep players records.  We had a great season, partly due to the fact that all colleges had a dearth of athletes since so many were in the services.  I still have the warm Navy blue sweater that was awarded me at the end of the season with the Soph Manager emblem in gold on it. [I think it should have been a PURPLE sweater—after all it was the UW.]

We had some pretty fair baseball players thanks to the V-12 and ROTC programs at the UW and Graves was one best baseball coaches in the country.  (Graves Field, the baseball diamond north of Hec-Ed pavilion, was named for him.)  We had a winning season against other service teams that included some drafted pro-baseball players.

In July of 1944, having completed four years in the Navy, at one of the V-12 general assemblies Captain Barr called me forward and presented to me the red ribbon of a Good Conduct Medal and informed me that I could now add a has mark on my lower left sleeve denoting my four years of service.  I was now marked as one of the “old men” of the V-12 unit.

I enjoyed the deference accorded “Pappy” Frieze by my V-12 classmates but those ribbons and the hashmark brought on my first good fist fight since Honolulu.  (We were required by Navy Regulations to wear any decorations we had been awarded on our dress uniforms.)  I was on liberty in downtown Seattle one evening and went to the head in some joint.  There were two tipsy Marine privates in the washroom.  One of them looked at the apprentice seaman’s stripe on my cuffs then at the campaign bars and has mark.

“Well,” said one Marine scornfully, “what hock shop did you buy those in, sailor-boy?!”

I saw red.  I let go a right that decked the Marine against the wall.  With one eye on his buddy, I grabbed him by his olive-green shirt front and hauled him back to his feet.  I slammed him against the wall before he knew what was happening and growled something like, ‘Look, you half-assed gyrene boot—I earned those ribbons at Pearl and in the South Pacific while you were still a pimply, snot-nosed kid in high school!  I got bust from first class for beating up on better men than you!  Now you get the hell out of a man’s way!”

The other Marine, caught by surprise by my violent reaction, came at me.  I let go of the first and back handed the second hard enough that he fell back against one of the wash basins, blood welling from a cut lip.  I stood with my fists on my hips, outwardly mean and defiant but inwardly hoping that a Navy man would come through the door.  “Who’s next?!”

The young Marine privates, probably just out of boot camp, had enough.  With a mumbled, “Sorry, Mac” from one they stumbled out the door leaving me vastly relieved and a bit proud of myself.

[Although they inherited my father’s temper, I taught my boys to use words, not fists, to settle arguments, but both of the older ones ending up having to deck a boy each when we moved to Gig Harbor.  That close-knit student community was trying to figure out those Casey boys.  They got suspended, but I didn’t punish them.  Their Papa understood.]

I continued to wear my campaign ribbons, the red Good Conduct ribbon above the others, on campus and on leave at home, but when I went on liberty in downtown Seattle I would quietly remove them and carry them in my pocket for the sake of no more incidences like that.

The Cason-Cramer Capper

King Street Station in Seattle during WWII

To my dying day, I will swear that I had no advance knowledge of the plan Cason and Cramer cooked up.

In January of 1944, we lost Cason and Cramer as our roommates.  They were both from Butte, Montana and both had girlfriends over there.  Regular weekend liberty did not allow enough time to make it to Butte by Sunday evening.  They were unable to get any special leave and decided to go AWOL to have at least one night with their girlfriends.

To my dying day, I will swear that I had no advance knowledge of the plan Cason and Cramer cooked up.  They had to leave by Thursday night to have enough time so they needed someone to answer for them at house muster on Friday morning.  That muster was very informal.  We did not fall into ranks but simply gathered informally in the Beta house entry.  People would be scattered all over including up the staircase and would answer up when the roll was called by the CPO.  I usually answered from the door to our little suite.  That Friday morning someone answered for Cason and Cramer.  All I knew was that they had not been in the bunk room when I woke just before muster.

I have no knowledge of how Cason and Cramer got found out unless the chief smelled a rat and checked.  At any rate, when the two of them got off the train from Montana that Sunday evening the Shore Patrol was waiting on the platform and took them into custody.

There was an investigation held in the office of Captain Barr, the V-12 commanding officer at the UW.  Both Brosy and I were called in since we were roommates of the miscreants.  They called Brosy in first while I waited in the anteroom.  After a few minutes Brosy came out of the office, his face stony.  Obviously on instruction he walked straight past me without a word, but as he passed my chair I caught the faint flicker of a smile and an almost noticeable shake of his head.

When I was called in I was facing the Captain, the executive officer, and one officer I did not recognize.  I was not invited to sit down but stood at attention.  Captain Barr opened the interrogation by saying “Well, Frieze, you might as well be honest and tell everything you know.  Brosy has just done that so all we need is confirmation as to how our two AWOLs planned their little junket and who answered for them at muster.  Was it you?”

I knew full well that Brosy would not have said that we did overhear some conversation that indicated what Cason and Cramer were going to do.  I kept my face grave and said, “No, Captain, it was not me that answered.”

“But you know who did.”  It was not a question; it was a statement.

“No, Sir.  I did not know of their plan and was not aware that they were gone until word came that they had been arrested.  I was in Vancouver on a liberty pass signed by you, sir, until Sunday evening.”

“You mean to stand there and tell me that roommates made such a plan and, living with them, you did not at least overhear their talk about it?!”

“That is correct, Sir.  When we are in our quarters we are studying—“ (I could have added, ‘or I am wrting to and thinking about my girlfriend’ but I did not)”and when I concentrate I pay no attention to conversations around me.  If they talked about it, I did not hear them.”  I gambled, looked directly at the captain, and smiled wryly.  “Try me some time when I am reading the Sunday comics, Captain.  I concentrate the same unless it’s an air raid alarm or a Jap attack!”

“You do know the penalties for perjury, do you not?”

“Captain, I am a fleet sailor and I have been in the Navy for nearly four years.  You will find that I have never even been to a Captain’s Mast.  My record is clean.  I was leading first class petty officer before I got involved in the V-12 program.”

There were more questions from the other members of the investigating panel but they got the same answers—that I knew mothering of Cason and Cramer’s plan and had not aided them in any way.  It quickly became obvious that Barr’s opening comment about what Brosy had said was all bluff.  Brosy and I came off with a clean slate—as we should have.  Cason and Cramer were not fleet sailors, but had recruited directly into the V-12 program.  They were sent to boot camp in Farragut, Idaho, and went to sea on destroyers.  (They both survived the war.  In later years, Cramer was a smoke jumper for forest fires and Cason worked for the telephone company in Butte.)

Bootlegging in College

The key to going into the bootlegging business was that booze was sold in Washington only in state-run liquor stores and, like so many other things in wartime, was strictly rationed.  We got, as I recall, ration stamps for only one bottle of whiskey and two of rum and such per month.  On the street in the Skid Road area of Seattle down on the waterfront, a bottle of whiskey would bring ten to fifteen dollars from the many soldiers, sailors and marines on liberty.

Bob and I set up what amounted to sort of a black-market organization.  V-12 was full of non-drinking youngsters (I was one of the oldest in the Beta house).  We recruited several of them that were of legal age, had them get liquor ration cards and buy their rations each month, then we would pay them a dollar more than the prices they paid in the liquor store (which ranged from a dollar or so for rum to two or two and a half for whiskey in those days).  We had them get cheap brands, of course.

At the Beta House in our ground floor suite we had discovered a perfect hiding place for our stock.  It was a shoe riser in a closet.  The floorboard could be lifted off to reveal a generous space below.  (It was obvious that Beats before us had used the hidey hole.)

We had a perfect route to leave the house after taps without the CPO’s knowledge which made us AWOL, but we did not worry about that as the whole thing was illegal in all respects and had we been caught we would have gone to sea on a destroyer in short order.  Our method was simple.  The bathroom window opened onto an alley.  We could slip quietly out after full dark, walk down to “The Ave”, and catch a bus to downtown Seattle.  We would be carrying a zippered ditty bag with three or four bottles of assorted booze.

Our modus operandi was to get down to First Avenue where the joints and dives were, stash the ditty bag in a dark alley, and carry one bottle at a time under our peacoats.  Watching for SP’s or MP’s in the vicinity, we would spot a group of tipsy servicemen coming out of a joint at the midnight closing.  Nine times out of ten they were looking for a taxi driver or someone who would sell them a bottle of booze.

Regardless of whether we happened to be carrying Two Seal whiskey or a bottle of rum, we would sidle up and offer to sell them a bottle of Old Crow because we were broke, showing only the neck of the bottle with the seal intact inside our coat.  If they wanted to see the bottle we would whisper, “o way, Mack.  Shore Patrol might spot us!  Take it or leave it.”

Almost invariably a quick collection would be taken up and they would take the paper-bagged bottle and slip it under someone’s coat.  By the time they found an alley and pulled the bottle out to discover that they had bought cheap bourbon or run, we were long gone in the darkness and by one o’clock would have slipped back through the bathroom window with some very tidy profits.

For three or four months Brosy and I had money for our regular train rides south and some left over to spend for movies, flowers, dances, and such with our fiancées.  Our bootlegging days came to an abrupt end, however.  One night I was making a run (we travelled separately) and when I caught the downtown bus I wound up in a seat behind two Marines who boarded at Pier 91.  One of them was new to Seattle and the other was briefing him on how to ind girls and booze.

I listened rather idly to their conversation until the briefer said, “Tell you one thing—I’m gonna keep my eye out for that blond-headed sailor (it fitted either Brosy or me) that sold me a cheap bottle of rum claiming it was Old Crow.  If I spot him, I’m going to beat the crap out of him!  Paid him twelve good dollars for a buck and a half bottle of rum!”

The night suddenly seemed very cold.  I scrunched down in my seat, pulling the collar of my peacoat up and tipping my white hat over my eyes pretending to be asleep.  I stayed on the bus for a couple of blocks after the Marines got off, then caught the next bus back to the University District.  That Marine had been a big rascal!  When I told Brosy what had happened he shrugged and said, philosophically, “Well, we had a good thing going but we probably would have got caught sooner or later and been canned from the program.”

Transferring to the University of Washington

In September of 1943 we were required to select our major.  I debated for quite a long time between Naval Architecture and a line officer’s commission, Civil Engineering and a request for the Colorado University at Boulder (in my basic Engineering Drawing class I had gotten interested in bridges and dams), and Aeronautical Engineering which would result in an aviation specialist commission.

The latter won out.  First because airplanes and flying were my first loves and, second, because the best aeronautical engineering school would be the University of Washington in Seattle and I would be within reasonable commuting distance of Vancouver for weekends and leaves.  In that regard I was influenced, I must admit, by Shirley’s urging that I do that.  I made application for transfer to the University of Washington in aeronautical engineering on September 16^th, according to my very brief little diary.

By that time, I had bought my grades back up to close to a 4.0 and that placed me high on the list for choice of transfer.  Captain Burnett, the V-12 commanding officer, approved my request and on 15 October when the trees on the Notre Dame campus were a glory of fall colors, my transfer came through approved.  The semester ended the following week.  After saying my goodbyes to Rossi, Brother Justin, the blonde softball player, and the lady at the Music Box organ, I left for Vancouver on the 20^th of October on three days delayed orders before reporting to the V-12 unit at the University of Washington on November 1^st.

Getting to Notre Dame

Chapter 34

University of Notre Dame – 1943

Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that one day this old Ozark boy would walk onto the campus of fabled Notre Dame as a student.  When I alighted from the bus and walked through the main gate under the huge leafy trees of the big quadrangle, I was walking as if in a dream.  There before me was the gold leaf covered dome of the administration building and surrounding the main quadrangle were traditional old dormitory and classroom buildings.  Some were of stone and some of ivy-covered brick.  In the distance to the right I could see the football stadium that was familiar from newsreels of triumphs of the “Fighting Irish”.  (The famous Knute Rockne had passed on and it was the era of coach Frank Leahy.)

When I reported to the executive officer of the V-12 unit, a lieutenant commander, he was delighted to find that I was an experienced fleet sailor. Most of my classmates would be youngsters recruited fresh out of high schools.  The Exec promptly pu me to work helping to form the class.  (It also turned out that I was one of the older men in the class and it was no me who became known as “Pappy” Frieze, a cognomen I would carry all the way through V-12 and midshipman’s school until commissioning when I would become just another young ensign.)

It was on the morning of my second day at Notre Dame that I swore at a Naval officer for the second, and last, time.  (The first was that young ensign who didn’t know where the master switch was on PBY 71-P-7 starting out the “Hogan’s Goat” flight.)  I came into the V-12 office to assist with the class “Watch, Quarter, and Station Bill”.  When I appeared, the Exec’s yeoman casually said, “Hey, Frieze—too bad about that second set of orders.  Would have liked to have those myself.”

I stopped dean in my tracks.  “What second set of orders?!”

“Geez,” the yeoman said, “thought you knew about it.  Your orders to flight school came yesterday.  The exec sent ‘em back.

“He WHAT?!”

Sent ‘em back.  He said that your orders to V-12 too precedence even though the orders to AP flight school were dated first.”

Without hesitation I bolted into the exec’s office.  He was working on some papers at his desk.  I do not recall my words but they spilled in a torrent, some as purple as my face no doubt was, to the effect that I should have had a choice in the matter.  The lieutenant commander carefully laid down his yellow pencil, leaned back in his chair, ad heard me out.  He did not speak until I ran out of breath then his words were terse.”

“You through, sailor?”

“Yessir—I guess so.”

“Then sit down!”

I did so, clutching my white hat between my knees and knowing I had lost my temper.

“Now look, I will only tell you this once.  If you went to flight school, you would wind up this war nothing but a journeyman throttle jockey.  If you didn’t get your butt shot off by a Zero—and the woods are going to be full of ex-service pilots when the world is over.

“On the other hand, if you can hack it in V-12—and about one out of three of you won’t—you are going to get a fine college education in the major of your choice—all paid for by Uncle Sam.  If you took those flight school orders instead of V-12, you would be a whole lot dumber than I think you are!  Besides, once you get your commission you can apply for flight school as an officer if you are bound and determined to fly.  War will likely be over by then—we hope—but I do believe it can be won without you out there.  Any questions?”

The officer waited patiently while I fiddled with my white hat and thought about it.  I knew he was right.  I suddenly flet stupid about my tirade.  It would have been a dumb old country boy mistake.  I came to my feet, stood at attention, and said simply, “Nossir!”

The lieutenant commander smiled faintly as he picked up his pencil and turned back to his papers.  “All right, Frieze, we’ll have men arriving all day.  Get out there and help Williams figure out the which dorm to put them in.  By the way, you know that you have to revert to apprentice seaman in the V-12 program so get that first class “crow” off your uniforms.  Carry on, seaman!”

That evening I sat in my room in one of Notre Dame’s ivied dormitories and, with a razor blade, took off both the first class AMM badges and two of the three white strips on the cuff of my dress blues.  I also had to find a tailor to put the white seaman’s stripe around the left shoulder of my blues and the blue one on my whites.  It was difficult to adjust to being a “boot” once more—especially on payday when I would drop from more than a hundred dollars back to the apprentice seaman’s pay of twenty-one dollars a month!

Coming as I had almost directly from the war in the Pacific and the crude living conditions in Dallas hut C-4 on Ile Nou, Notre Dame was a dream come true.  We bunked tow men to a room in the first brick dormitory building to the left of the main campus gate.  My roommate was a slender, black-haired New Yorker named Rossi.  He was a pleasant young fellow and we explored the campus and went on liberties together.

All the buildings were old, but they and the spacious campus grounds were immaculately kept.  Down a slope from the main quadrangle was the grotto with a statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking a lake beyond which lay Saint Mary’s, the Catholic female equivalent of Notre Dame.

Except for the specialized Navy classes conducted in a new building west of the main quadrangle, our classes were taught by either priests or lay brothers in their black robes and crucifixes.  They showed no bias about we non-Catholics and at no time during my two stays at Notre Dame was any effort made to convert me to Catholicism.  [It is possible that the conversion had happened the other direction 350 years before.  Rumor has it that our earliest ancestor coming to the New World, Francis Perkins, was a part of the Gunpowder Plot in England and hence had to flee.]

The only daily reminder we had that Notre Dame was a Catholic university was that each class was begun by an “Our Father” recited in unison.  To me, of course, it was the Lord’s Prayer and thoroughly familiar, with one exception that embarrassed me the first morning of classes.  The “Our Father” does not include the last line of the Lord’s Prayer, “For Thine is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever and ever.  Ah-men.”  When we got to that point in Brother Justin’s English class, I rattled right on with the last line loud and clear causing everyone to turn and look at me.

Mortified, I muttered something like “I’m sorry, Brother Justin, you see I am a Protestant.”

Brother Justin, whose huge bulk in the black robe made him resemble Friar Tuck in the stories about Robin Hood, simply smiled kindly and said, “You will find, Mr. Frieze, that will not be held against you here.”  Then he eyed my slender frame, patted his fat belly, and added, “We shall get together sometime and perhaps you can pass along your secret of girth control!”

In actual fact, I did spend some non-class time with Brother Justin.  He and many others of the staff were quartered in an English motif grey stone building during that semester and later when I came back to Notre Dame for midshipman’s school, I sat in the lounge there with him and Brother Justin introduced me to the game of chess.

Our Saturday night and weekend liberties in South Bend were not as raucous as those in Chicago but it did not take Rossi and I long to find a favorite “watering hole”.  The South Bend of those days centered around the LaSalle Hotel, the largest in town.  It was conveniently situated downtown.  A block north was a bowling alley which we frequented.  One block west was a street having some bars and taverns.

Our watering hole to replace the Crown Propeller Lounge in Chicago was one called “The Music Box”.  It featured a long bar behind which was a small red-draped stage containing an organ.  The organist on Friday and Saturday nights was a pleasant elderly lady who had an extensive repertoire and was pleased at requests, most especially when they were accompanied by a fresh drink.  The first couple of evenings we spent there, I promptly requested my favorite, “Sentimental Journey”.  That lady had a memory for more than music.  From then on, like the combo at the Crown, when she saw me come through the door she would welcome me by swinging into that song.  (No, doubt it was the campaign bars on my blouse because, on twenty-one dollars a month, I did not have much extra money to buy her drinks.)

Our meager funds were another reason we frequented The Music Box.  They had an ex-pug in the kitchen that cooked the best bar chicken I ever tasted and, with a drink, it was dirt cheap.  That was often our supper.  Of course the fact that the Bendix Company had a factory near South Bend that employed a lot of the “Rosie the Riveters” during the war and some of them were regular patrons of the Music Box did nothing to scare us away!

We did not spend all our liberty time in bars or the bowling alley.  Depending on our finances, we often took in a movie, went to a ball game, or accepted home visit invitations form South Bend residents willing to entertain servicemen far from home for dinner or a picnic.  (We found to our glee that sometimes the latter would be some “Rosie the Riveter” types looking for men and some dandy parties resulted!)

There were also afternoon or evening USO dances.  At one of those I met a delightful little blonde tomboyish twenty-one-year-old whose name, I regret to say, I have forgotten.  I persuaded her to give me her telephone number to let me see her home.  She was from a home similar to mine back on the west side of Vancouver and we enjoyed each other’s company.  She belonged to a girls’ softball team and I spent a couple of Saturday afternoons watching her play.  There was, however, still Shirly waiting back in Vancouver and no real sparks flew between us so nothing ever came from that relationship except some innocent and enjoyable companionship.