Midsummer Mood

In Ed Massey's barbershop at 3306 Main Street, Kansas City, a big, muscular man, generously daubed with powder and witch hazel, eased himself out of a barber's chair. He had just had a haircut, shave, shampoo, scalp massage and shoe shine--"the works." Time was when the big man, a steamfitter by trade, would have thought it mad folly to come to Ed Massey's for anything but a haircut. But last week his pay envelope held $140, and he now frankly enjoyed these little male luxuries--everything except a manicure.

He handed Ed a $20 bill, got $17.50 in change, gave Ed a 25-c- tip, and doled out 15-c- to the shoeshine boy. The Star, with its short, old-fashioned headlines, was on the cashier's counter. The big man picked up the paper and read aloud: RED SPEED STUNS NAZIS, YANKS STRIKE IN FRANCE.

"Well, boys," the big man said, "I guess it's all over but the shouting. I wouldn't be surprised to see those Heinies fold up tomorrow."

"Yep," said the man in the second chair, "I got a $10 bet that this little show will be over by Labor Day."

The laundryman, who had just come in with clean towels, joined in: "If that boy of mine isn't home for Christmas dinner, I'll do a double somersault right over this chair."

This seemed to settle the matter; there was no argument. The big man went next door to Ben Brooks's saloon, for a short one before heading home.

In varying forms, this scene was repeated all over the U.S. last week, in other barbershops, in factories, on farms, in the very best clubs; on street corners and in homes, accompanied always by the radio, whose doom-voiced newscasters now had only an endless procession of good news to read. For the U.S. people, rightly or wrongly, but reading what seemed like obvious signs, were convinced that the end of the war in Europe is but a matter of months. They knew it was tough; they were not lying down on their jobs; their own sons were "out there" fighting, and perhaps dying, but as Americans they figured it this way.

The signs were not only in the headlines.

This factory here, or that machine shop there, cut down on war production. Whole communities sniffed the new optimism. Despite the best-intentioned Old Testament preachments from Washington, the people reasoned that this would be the last summer for at least the European war.

Shelves Full. In some ways it seemed almost like a prewar summer. Talk of rationing and shortages dropped to a whisper: after two and a half years of war, the hardest things to get were kleenex, Camel cigarets, and shirts from the laundry.

Of the 14 novels on the New York Times's best-seller list, only two had a war setting; of the 16 nonfiction titles, only four concerned the war. The top song hit was a bouncy novelty for children, Swingin' on a Star; the three runners-up were sentimental lyrics, of which two (I'll Be Seeing You and I'll Get By) were years old. Manhattan, the very citadel of the new, reinforced the trend to the old and romantic: one night 21,000 people, the biggest crowd in two years, crammed Lewisohn Stadium to hear Oscar Levant play George Gershwin's 1924 smash, the Rhapsody in Blue.

Weather Clear. Across the land, from Montauk Point to Catalina, from Chicago to New Orleans, a heat wave scorched and simmered, driving the citizenry to beaches and mountains and woods. Almost to a man, the U.S. people decided to take a vacation (many had not had one since 1940). Cracked one would-be vacationer: "You don't tell the resort when you're coming; they tell you when you can have a room, if any."

For days on end the race tracks happily posted: WEATHER CLEAR, TRACK FAST (biggest daily double of the week was also the biggest of the racing season: $3,663 at Jamaica). The Cardinals, as usual, were in first place; so were the St. Louis Browns, by no means as usual. The Dodgers lost 13 in a row, and Brooklyn suffered in sackcloth, with ashes on its shirtfront.

The American woman, the slim prototype of world fashion, appeared in fewer clothes than ever before, not only at the swimming pools and beaches, but on the streets and in offices, as fashion ran more heavily to bare backs, bare legs, bare knees, bare midriffs, to the lowcut, short-skirted, off-the-shoulder dinner dress. If anyone seemed to mind, no one said so. And from the swank shops came the first notes of autumn: Town & Country proudly announced that its July issue carried more fur advertising than any American magazine had ever had before. Manhattan Hatman Walter Florell whipped up a hat which thrust 17 inches into the air, another which dripped with "oodles and oodles of mink."

Politics Normal. It was also a week of disaster: fire consumed the Ringling Bros, circus tent at Hartford, Conn., killing 158 spectators (see Disasters). The Santa Fe Chief was derailed near Flagstaff, Ariz, (four dead); an L. & N. troop train near Jellico, Tenn.. (35 dead). A mine fire at Bellaire, Ohio, entombed 64 workmen. In Bedford, N.H. a dynamite plant was blown to such smithereens that men disputed over exactly where it had stood.

There were other serious overtones. Detroit safely weathered the first anniversary of its race riot, but ugly rumors of a new one flew from Belle Isle to Willow Run. The South, too, and the border cities, St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, were pricked by the thorn of "nigger trouble."

The politicians might call 1944 a crucial year. If the people agreed, they showed no sign of it yet. In Kansas City an old ward heeler of the old Pendergast mob set out to canvass his district. Said the first housewife: "I'm not interested." Said the second: "Why aren't you in uniform?" Said the third: "Man, don't you know there's a war on?"

Said the ward heeler: "I quit," and did.

Spirit Up. The people knew there was a war on, not only from the headlines, but more & more from their sons who were coming back--not only the heroes, but the plain G.I.s, furloughed home for a rest. They knew it also from the sons who did not come back.

Last week, on the lawn in front of her frame house in Aurora, Ill., aged, invalid Mrs. Fredericka Truemper sat stiffly in an old rocking chair while the general from Chanute Field draped the Congressional Medal of Honor around her neck. The Medal was a posthumous award for her son, Lieut. Walter Truemper, an Eighth Air Forces navigator. His Flying Fortress crippled, and the pilot wounded, Lieut. Truemper and another new member died in an attempt to save the plane, after all others had bailed out. This was the 100th Medal of Honor awarded in World War II.

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