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11
 
My last week before Willie and Bab returned fortunately was a busy one socially if not businesswise, the main events following:

Tuesday evening, Perk and I visited Gordon McDonald so he and Perk could have the first rehearsal of their "soiree musicale" with Perk playing the piano and Mac the violin. Mac's violin was a valuable one--a 1748 Cremona--which he'd once been offered $1,200 for. This doesn!t sound like much today but it did then. In fact, today, as a retirement hobby, Mac makes violas, and he does it so well that he sells them for $3,000 apiece.

Wednesday night Whitey Wilson threw a poker party attended by Harry Harrington, Wayne Lynch, Jake Brauns, me and a guy named Toner whom I can't place. Perk was invited but went to church instead. It was a good party and was enlivened considerably by some "dago red" Whitey had been able to pick up.

The next night, Perk and I were invited to the Brandensteins to a dinner served jointly by Billy Brandenstein and Freddie Harrington. Afterward we talked and joked until it was time to go home. I regarded "Binky Baniscam" (Bab's pronunciation) as an unusual little woman and much to be admired for her kindness, courage and faith. Freddie Harrington wasn't too well and because of it, was unable to have children. At first I hadn't taken to her particularly, just why I don't know, but gradually I came to admire her very much. She had been a nurse and she was always ready to throw herself into any breach where her experience could be of help.

On Friday, February 26th, I reflected that it was seventeen years that day since my father had died, and what a very long, long time that was--that in another seventeen years our Babbie would be grown up and "Little Brother" not far from it. Today, seventeen years doesn't seem so long ago. Rog and Joanie have been married about nineteen years! I organized the Equipment Section sixteen years ago. But then it seemed a long. long time. That day I took Adeline Macloskie to the Junior League roller skating party. Never having been much of a roller skater, I had a bad time at first but managed to avoid falling and became more proficient as the evening wore on. I particularly admired "a young Mrs. Selden who was a joy to watch--graceful as could be." My diary notes that "roller skating is apparently a fad now for the young smart set." En route home, we stopped at the Traphagens, who'd been with us, and I was disappointed in Bud on this occasion--he'd had some wine and I thought swore too much in front of the girls. I was much taken with Mary Lo however. Bud was on test and worrying for his job.

Transcription Notes:
I removed an accent over the first "e" in the word soiree in the second line of the second paragraph that is not in the original text; corrected misspelled name Willie in first line