Dear Diary,
I got two pictures of Bob today. In one of them he was greeting Paulette Goddard at a Command Performance broadcast with a kiss that was just a little (am I kidding?) more affectionate than the one I got three weeks ago. The other picture showed Bob gazing in bewilderment at a sergeant who looked amazingly like Jerry Colonna, except that the solder’s mustache drooped a little more. Jerry was standing by looking equally bewildered.
I could have kicked myself today for not listening to Bob’s show as it was rebroadcast. I was going to find out where he’ll be next week and write him. Now I’ll have to send it around the 29th, Bob’s birthday.
Dear Diary,
I dreamed about Bob last night for about the sixth time in the last two weeks. But the one last night was stranger than the others. I wish I had Daniel or Joseph to interpret it. I was in church, in my dream, and we had just finished a hymn. Bob walked up the aisle on my left, taking up the song books. He stopped when he got to me, and started a conversation. I don’t remember exactly what was said, except that he was the nicest and sweetest person I had ever talked to, and that eventually we started talking about “Command Performance.” I told him I’d hear him on it a week ago, and from somewhere he produced a newspaper with that program listed on a special short wave time table.
Dear Diary,
Bob was on Command Performance today. He and Johnny Mercer and Judy Garland did snatches of several of Johnny’s songs together. The cutest one was “Strip Polka” or whatever the name of it is. They sang more of it than any of the others. The show was recorded before Bob left Hollywood last week.
Dear Diary,
Command Performance seemed rather dull after Bob and Bing kicked a half-hour around last week. I won’t commit myself by saying who was on it. I want to be old enough to defend myself thoroughly before I’m sued for libel.
Dear Diary,
Bob and Bing were on Command Performance together today. Need I say more? Bob was better than I’ve heard him in months, and even giggled once. I don’t know what did it. He may have been feeling especially well, or it might have been Bing, who always seems to people up Bob’s spirits.
Dear Diary,
Bing Crosby was on Command Performance today, as it celebrated its first birthday. He said, “The only damage that’s been done so far is that High Horn Bob Hope has bee around a couple of times. But who’s gonna knock eggs nowadays”?
Dear Diary,
Kay Kyser announced tonight that he would be in Camp Pendleton next Wednesday. I was talking to Mother when I heard it, and I said, “He’s a copy cat. That’s where Bob was last night.” Just as I finished saying that he said, “And next Tuesday I hope to be on Bob Hope’s show.” In other words, speak of the devil, and –, well you know how it goes. I got two pictures of Bob and Kay together today. They were talking to each other during a rehearsal of Command Performance, that went on the air Christmas eve. That’s probably when the decided Kay should be Bob’s guest, if I know my p’s and q’s, and I think I do.
Dear Diary,
I heard Bob Hope on the radio seven times this month. Five times on his own show, once on the special Christmas Eve presentation of Command Performance, and the remaining time on the two-hour Christmas day show, in which Don Ameche introduced Bob as “that itinerant raconteur,” to which Bob replied, “How do like that? Itinerant raconteur. That guy could call you a dirty bum and it would take you three days to figure out that you’d been insulted.” Well, could be, but Don certainly wasn’t insulting Bob then. Webster says, “Raconteur – one who excels in storytelling.” That’s Bob.
Dear Diary,
I really went to town this month, as far as listening to Bob Hope on the radio is concerned. I heard him seven times this month. For of those times, he was on his own show. He was on the Lux Radio Theater one Monday this month. Another time, Bob was on the show for the A. E. F., Command Performance. And of course the seventh time occurred when the Kraft Music Hall was graced my his presence. Of course in those seven I didn’t include the time I heard the rebroadcast of the Command Performance. That really makes eight.
Dear Diary,
I tuned in on the Command Performance about four minutes late this morning, and whose beautiful, melodious voice should come bubbling out but Bob Hope’s! He was really in his element, too, because the other guests included Judy Garland, Claudette Colbert, and Lana Turner. How is he doing? In fact, how’ I doing? Counting today, I’ll hear him three times this week, since he’s going to be on Dumbo’s program next Thursday. Bob was talking about playing army camps this morning and he said, “We played Santa Anna last week. That’s where they’ve got my brother, George, in the air force. In fact that’s the only way they could get him in the air-force.”
Muriel Windham's Diary 