← Harold's Old Time Radio
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- [00:01]
Narrator
We interrupt this program to bring you an important Wayfair message. Wayfair's got style tips for Every home. This is Nicole Fire helping you make those rooms flyer. Today's style tip when it comes to making a statement, treat bold patterns like neutrals. Go wild like an untamed animal. Print area rug under a rustic farmhouse table. From wayfair.com Ooh, fierce. This has been your Wayfair style tip to keep those interiors superior. Wayfair every style, every home 19 glad you can make it, friend, because this is the kiss off our last chance for another stroll in the night. The black watchful night that we've gotten to know a little better puts me in mind of something I memorized as a kid. You probably did too. The melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year, the big bold time of the year when the days seem to be brighter and the night's placker, the time of harvest and fulfillment. A couple of months from now, the city will be lashed with a whip of the north winds. The balminess will go out of the lake and ice will move in and the whiteness of snow will take over, draped like an ermine wrap thrown carelessly aside. There'll be slush in the streets and car tracks petrified in the dirty gray ice. The windows of stores and homes will be crusted with heavy frost, and kids in apartment buildings will melt a peeping spot with the heels of their young warm palms. Fur coats, real and otherwise, will be wrapped around the bodies of the women who could afford them and for those who can't, the misshapen sight of too many sweaters, mufflers pulled right around the throat, boots and galoshes, everybody rushing to get inside. And when Christmas comes, Santa Claus on every loop corner, the Salvation Army, State street, an outdoor indoor wonderland. Chicago, city of many moods. Many people my city want to tag along. The American Broadcasting Company Company presents a feature that a guy in a front office titled Black Knight. I know we haven't started off in a cab too often, but tonight hang the expenses. It's all on me. And I want this to be evening. You'll remember I'm informal dress for the occasion. What do you think of that? On our other excursions it's been, well, more or less go as we are. But tonight's special. Very special. Where are we going? Well, first of all, I want to stop off at a wedding reception at ought to be in full swing now. Not the ordinary kind either. Remember the Slovak wedding we went to some weeks back? Had A pretty good time, didn't we? Tonight we're heading for another of the same sort where some of the old world customs are carried over. That's where I thought you might enjoy a stop at this spot on Damon Avenue. Remember when it used to be called Roby Street? Some of the old timers still call it Roby. In the early days of this town, it used to have still another name. Cornelia Roby was one of Chicago's pioneers. So the council changed it to Roby to honor him. It was Roby street for a heck of a long time. And then the council met and after much haggling, a major decision was reached to once again change the name to honor another early citizen, Father Damon. Yeah, believe it or not, Damon street, with a lot of tough overtones is named after a priest. But there are still a lot of merchants and workers who prefer to remember it as rub. The reception is right around the corner. Yeah, there it is, the place. The frame house with the exposed rickety stairs leading up to the front door that's open. Here you are, Mac. Skip the change. The house doesn't look like much and what there is of the lawn needs trimming. But it's not the house that counts, I always say, it's the people in it. Oh, I know both the guy and the gal. The guy a little better used to work with him back in my newspaper days. Come on, let's go up. Tony sure must have a lot of relatives. Or a lot of neighbors, I don't know which. Probably a combination of both. Quite a crowd, isn't it? Place belongs to Tony's mother. That's her. The little pint pot sitting on the couc. The one with the steel gray hair pulled severely back into a knot at the back of her head. Face looks a little thin, skin a little dry. But those eyes. Did you ever see such warmth and depth? They're the eyes of a young girl. Bet you she was a real knockout back in Naples. Her husband died 10 years ago, that's the reason. She's all in black, right down to her cockpit stockings and the high lace shoes. Tony told me once that the reason his mother hasn't come out of mourning isn't because she was that crazy about the old man. He gave her such a bad time that, well, she wants to let the world know that one man was enough. She didn't want any more. There's so many people around. The bride and the groom at the dining room table, you can hardly pick them out. All the well wishers with Their gifts, money and envelopes for the most part, toasting the bride with a drink. Tony will be higher than a hood owl if they don't stop. Pretty soon notice the table loaded with all kinds of Italian pastries. Tony's mother made them all herself. Pretty soon there'll be crusty sandwiches, a hot roast beef. Lots of wine and liquors. Black coffee for those who want it. Let's see what's happening out in back of the house. The cup. Spill it over. I knew there'd be music. Let's stay here in the back porch and listen for a while. Nothing is bigger or friendlier. And once you've earned its friendship, I found you've a friend forever. It's. Hey, there's Tony and his bride. Must have slipped out the front way to get out to the courtyard. If this is what I think it is, better watch carefully. Yeah, they're gonna dance the tarantella. Hey, look at the time. We've got to get back to the Loop. I told you I planned a fancy evening. We're going to the Azalea Room. Get us, huh? Right up to the very top floor. You get a wonderful view of Chicago from here. I made a point to get a table at one of the windows. This. Haven't been into this spot in years. Didn't think I'd ever come back. But I'm in a kind of reminiscing mood. Maybe I'll tell you about it after a while. The head waiter doesn't know whether to recognize me or not. Come on. When I asked for a window table, I didn't think we get the very same one. Nice, isn't it? Mellow candle lights spotlighting the white linen. Tall, deep red roses and thin, sober vials. Ladies and gentlemen dressed in best bib and tuckers. And below us, the city hotels like this one and others nothing like it. Places that used to mean something and now are just. Just stark memories of what used to be. And places that nobody thinks about except the lost, forgotten people who've even forgotten themselves. It's a crazy town, isn't it? Big and sprawling, place of many contradictions. Where some folks in the east are surprised when they learn that we have libraries and cathedrals and that people aren't dying on street corners mowed down by the gangster machine guns. Where it's tough to find even a wooden Indian. Where you can feel as lonely or wanted as you want. Where you can rub elbows with elements of the famous or be lost in the crowd and the shuffle. Where a good hunk of the south side is known as Bronzeville. And some people living north and west associate only the strong smell of the stockyards with it, where men sweat for a living in the steel mills and their labors light the sky. Here comes the waiter with our drinks. Thanks. Well, here's to you and me and Chicago.
- [18:29]
Tony
Hands across the table while the lights are known. You hush. Your lips, your fingertips tell me all I want to know. Hands across the table be so tenderly. And they say in their little way.
- [19:06]
Narrator
To me.
- [19:30]
Tony
Across the table be so tenderly. And they say in their little way that you belong to me.
- [20:01]
Narrator
Wonder if that guy sang that song on purpose. Jenny was her name. An ordinary name for an extraordinary woman. She sat across the table from me, just as you are now. And I never remembered her looking more beautiful than she did that night. She had a flare for clothes, knew how to wear them well. Knew how to make the most of what she had. And believe me, she had plenty. All warm, all woman. The candlelight seemed to seep into her skin, lighting it from inside. The shadows caught at her nostrils in a way that made her finely chiseled nose look piquant, very appealing. Or as appealing as a nose can be. Her eyes were gray, green, opulescent, dream ridden. And her eyebrows were silk, black like. Well, like small bird wings. She wore her oil black hair long and sleek in a way that heightened the frail hollow of her cheeks. The most beautiful woman in the whole wide world. And I had the ring in my pocket to cinch the deal, to make her mine for always. We had drinks and dinner, danced a little, talked a lot. At least I did the kind of trivia a lover does. And when I led up to the Lohengrin. Let's listen to the music, huh? Have another drink.
- [22:08]
Tony
Be brave, young lovers, and follow your star. Be brave and faithful and true. Play very close to each other tonight. Life and love like you. I know how it feels to have wings on your heels and to fly down a street in a trance. You fly down a street and a chance that you meet and you meet not really by chance. Don't cry, young lovers, whatever you do, don't cry because I'm alone. All of my memories are happy too tonight. I've had a love of my own. I've had a love of my own like yours. I've had a love of my own.
- [24:05]
Narrator
What happened? What did she say? Believe it or not, I've never told anyone this, but. Well, we won't be seeing each other after this anymore. Maybe if I talked about it. It'd help. It's almost as though time were pushing back to that night below those many years ago. And it's almost as though I could hear.
- [24:41]
Jo
Jo. Remember when we first met and I told you there'd come a time when I'd have something to tell you that would make a big difference between us? Don't laugh. Don't interrupt, please. Darling. It's going to be difficult enough as it is. And when I've finished, I don't want to hear what you have to say. If you have anything to say at all. I feel almost as though you'd given me a priceless gift. How priceless? I. I didn't know up until this very minute. And now I'm going to smash it with just the sound of my voice. You know, I often wondered where we'd be and how I'd tell you. It was wrong of me not to tell you right away. That first date should have been the last. But you had such a strong feeling about this town. Stronger than my own. And I thought mine was the strongest. And you've taken me through doors I thought were closed to me forever. You see, Joe, when I was a very young child, I found out this was a white man's world. Ever since college, I've been passing. Please don't say anything, Jo. Please. I've anticipated anything you could say, that we could go away, live anywhere in the world we choose. Perhaps even renounce the race that made me renounce mine. I've never felt smaller or cheaper than I do right now, Jo. And being the way I am, I. I'm even more of a coward because I don't want to go back. I've given up my family and. And now I. I'm giving up you. My comeuppance, I guess you could call it. Don't get up. Please. I. I don't deserve it. I. So long, white boy.
- [27:23]
Narrator
Her attempt to hurt me into hating her was valiant. It hurt, but I couldn't hate. I was nuts about her. And she was the only woman in the world I wanted. Or keeps. I stood here on this bridge, looking over the side into the river. And I took the ring from my pocket. Pocket. And dropped it over the sign. It didn't even make a sound. The night air has a chill in it, fresh from the lake. But there's more than the lake wash breeze. The night air is sick with the smell of exhaust pipes pungent with stenchous stackyards redolent with the smoke. Vultures of tall stacks in the trains. And all around town. There are people laughing and crying, praying and blaspheming, hating and loving, frightening and lonely, drunk and sober, forgetting and remembering. And here we are back at the stop I met you. Thanks for your company, your letters. And wherever you wander, keep an eye out for me, will you? Well, I guess it's time for me to throw off. In the Black Night Black Knight was written by Bob Savage and directed by Lou Perkins. Don Dowd is heard as Joel. Music was under the direction of Rex Maupin and featured the ABC Orchestra. Our soloist was Don Moreland, and Claire Walsh was heard as Jenny. This program came to you from Chicago. America is sold on abc, the American Broadcasting Company.