Dart’s shift at work tonight provided a wild ride. The Plain Dealer was keeping busy with its three “disaster” stories – none of which was a really big deal. The stories were: a grade-crossing accident, an explosion in Chicago, and a fire at a Standard Oil refinery. “All were being handled in the course of events, and we were fairly busy on all of them for new material was coming in all the time. No sooner would we get a story set up in type and almost ready to go into the paper then we’d get some new development on it and have to change it.”
Because Cleveland radio stations provide no news coverage on Sunday nights, news of the Sohio refinery fire was slow to spread. The first new deadline for the early edition is at 9:30. At 9:15, the switchboards lit up. Apparently, on his national radio program, Walter Winchell had announced a fire at an oil refinery in Cleveland. “We were getting new info on the Chicago explosion and the grade-crossing fiasco, and the fire was giving us some trouble of our own, and Winchell hadda go and open his big, fat mouth.”
It seems that Winchell had lied, or exaggerated. He’d announced that the fire was threatening a huge tank of high-octane gasoline which was in danger of exploding. “He scared the heck out of half the city. To be sure, it was a ten-alarm fire, as spectacular as they come, but at no time was there any danger. It burned itself out just a few minutes before deadline. The paper came out at 10:00, right on schedule.”
Dart notices at this point in the letter that his typewriter ribbon is nearly worn out. He hopes a replacement doesn’t cost too much, nor is it on the shortage list.
His mother reports that Pop is up to 111 pounds and is doing much better. He’s still a bed patient, however. He thinks he’ll be discharged in a couple of weeks, although no doctor has said any such thing to him.
He wishes he had the words to write another letter like the one he wrote last night, but he doesn’t. “I do love you very much, Dot. I’m waiting for a certain day in June to begin proving it.”
No letter tomorrow.