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carefree days when I was nineteen. And yet I knew that even at nineteen, I felt old and appalled at the idea of leaving my "teens," at growing up. And then I reflected that ten years hence, I'd be harking back to the days when Bab was a baby and saying, "Oh, to be twenty-nine again!" It made me think of the Colonel saying to me, "If I were twenty-nine. Gee!" And I knew we were never satisfied. Bab talked of the things she would do when she was a "big girl" and I knew she'd be a big girl all too soon. But the thought of that autumn walk with Louie still filled me with a strange longing for my vanished youth--at twenty-nine! I felt that although I was only twenty-nine, nothing in the world could replace those ten years which had flown by. And Louie, the lovely, dark, much-sought Louie, was still unmarried. I had met her in Syracuse the previous spring and it was great to see her but she'd been soon forgotten as I clocked the "Empire State Express" speeding toward home.

I complained a little about Bab being spoiled but she was still our darling, good or naught. In mid-August, she had an inflammation in her left eye which worried us. Apparently it was caused by sand having gotten in her eye and we took her to Dr. Schlindwein, where she raised the roof. A usually crusty old guy, he was very nice for a change and gave her a good treatment for the trouble. One more visit to him fixed her up but she was a demon in the chair. Bab would get off a priceless remark periodically. One day I asked her if I could squeeze her, to which she replied very seriously, "You have already squeezed me and I must do my work first." (Exact words.) On another occasion, Barbara and Charlie Reed were at the house when Bab had to go up to bed. Bab informed Barbara that [[underlined]] she [[/underlined]] ought to go home and go to bed [[underlined]] too [[/underlined]], as well as "that man." Bab went to Johnnie Miller's third birthday party. It was her first party and she said afterward, "We'll have to have one of those every day." For her third birthday, I wrote in the diary: "Babbie was three years old today! How those years have flown by! We hope we can have a little brother for her next year but who knows? We had no party for Bab but she had some nice presents and had a good, sensible time and didn't get upset a bit. Too much excitement doesn't seem to agree with them very well."

In August, four months after my wisdom tooth extraction, I was still a bit shaken and wondering if maybe I shouldn't give up smoking. My hands trembled a little, which I attributed to weakness and which I felt would gradually disappear, but I was suspicious of cigarettes anyhow. It's probably too bad that I failed to quit them right then but I was to continue smoking them and cigars and pipes for another forty years.

Attended a tremendous poker and beer session at Roy Sjoberg's early in September--Roy, Perk, Gouldthorpe, Kearns, Baushcard, Steve Vouch and I. We got the beer up on West 21st Street behind the Erie Forge & Steel plant through the help of Doc Huggins