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A few days after the Colonel and I had our walk on the Peninsula, Bab and I took a walk out there, only she called it the "meninsula." We saw a great flock of perhaps a thousand migrating swans sojourning on the Bay briefly en route south. What fun we had pushing through the dry grass, walking along the windswept beach, the cold dark water roaring its defiance at the oncoming winter that would soon embrace it in the icy grip we knew so well. Bab was a great little companion, full of the joy of living and bright as they come. What a blessing she was. We took "Mama" out to see the swans in the afternoon. At 5:30, we dropped in on Ben and Toni to hear Gigli sing on the GE Hour and after that, Ben put on a few Pinza records--and I reflected on what an enormous satisfaction it must be to have such a voice.

As Christmas approached, I swore off smoking but I doubt if it lasted very long. We'd had a mild fall relatively speaking and had had no significant snow nor much really cold weather. The human body apparently doesn't adapt to unseasonable weather and both Bab and Mother were recovering from colds. But Willie weighed 122 and looked and felt better than in years as she approached her fifth month in pregnancy. Mother was getting ready to visit Mrs. Landrum in Charleston, S.C. with several stops en route back , so she would miss most of the Erie winter. Willie was expecting to go home to Louisville in January for a month or six weeks for the same purpose. My plan was to stay with Perk while Willie was gone or get him out to stay with me, but there was no way I could dodge the winter that was bound to come very soon. We had Ted and Madelaine Elliott in for bridge a few days before Christmas. Ted had been among the first to be let out by the GE because of the slump and he was selling insurance. And so we prepared for Christmas. The night of the 23rd we got the tree set up on its "jiffy" stand after a nerve-racking struggle. The weather continued rainy and warm and un-Christmasy. Some of the houses were lighted up but things weren't as brilliant as the year before, reflecting the effects of the depression that was really moving in by this time. My diary says, "Oh, well, why not live now as ever? Life is too good to waste the depression years unnecessarily." Up to that point, I don't think we'd suffered at all. The diary for the 24th says, "T'was the night before Christmas--and all our family was busy getting the tree ready for Bab tomorrow. It's the prettiest tree we've ever had--no larger but so symmetrical. Babbie is going to be delighted."

Bab was a perfect circus Christmas Day. She didn't know what to play with first but finally got started and simply went from one thing to another in a perpetual circle of fun--Gee Gee Horsee to tricycle to ironing board to train to blocks to beads to Gee Gee Horsee to tricycle, etc. And she would just stand and gaze at the tree enraptured. And what a chicken dinner Willie and Mother put on. All of us had our presents too